


👁️👄👁️

by naxariis



Category: 2020 - Fandom, 2021 - Fandom
Genre: Grief/Mourning, I already feel self conscious but I'm just gonna have to get over it sis, at least god's getting a chuckle out of this, because of the looming potential Major Character Death, but the whole reason I'm writing this is, calzones, god wiring this has been the only thing that's made me feel better in the past month, listen we have to talk about 2020, my primary means of coping is Just Putting It Aside but there's no more aside left, not everyone has a support system, wait no major archive warnings apply
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:40:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 96
Words: 75,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24900064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/naxariis/pseuds/naxariis
Summary: I think I'm grieving the end of the fucking world. Look away if you must
Relationships: me/the concept of being alive
Comments: 131
Kudos: 90





	1. Chapter 1

**June 24, 2020**

**2:51 PM**

I am a story teller. So let me tell you a story.

Am I treating ao3 like my personal diary? Yes. Lemme explain why.

I'm not a journal kind of person, I cannot sit down and write my thoughts out without giving up half way. I do not talk to the people in my life about my pain because I malfunction like a robot. I don't really cry often. I wish I did, I think it would do me some good. But the wires seem to be mixed up in my head. Even when I should be sad it's just empty up there.

2020 has been a year from the very fucking pits of hell. And today, for the first time, I'm feeling something other than numb. I wanted to put those feelings somewhere they would be safe.

Websites like Twitter and Tumblr are owned by companies that profit off of all my data. The interfaces don't support long, rambling thoughts like the one I'm writing here, and there is an undeniable aspect of performance to it all. Youtube gives you a show, starring one person, and we are all spectators. Instagram is....I hear terrible things.

These are all websites I love, where I've found different creative people I enjoy watching/following. But I can't help but feel like I'm grasping at straws when it comes time for us all to be human.

Youtubers film alone, in their homes, and I watch their videos alone, in my home, and together we search through the comments for human voices. Jokes. Observations. I scroll by comments I know will annoy me. I encourage the people I think are brave enough to speak, essentially, into a void. I think it's brave to speak even when you aren't sure anyone is listening. I'm trying to be brave for once.

I thumb down the comments that I hate. I hope it sends them the notification. I hope they know that I was annoyed enough with their rude/unnecessary comment that I exerted effort into letting them know. I don't usually bother. So they were being egregious. Or I was in a bad mood. I never know what mood I'm in. Most of the time it's just empty in here. 

Today, I'm sad. The events of the past few weeks have absolutely drained the life out of me. I was doing better since the quarantine, I was listening to new music. I never have time and energy combine forces to spare me some mercy. 

I listened to Mitski. I get it. The gay girls online were right and I am not surprised. I was doing better since the outbreak of a highly contagious, unpredictable virus had the whole world crash to a stop. Then a person was killed, and I had to watch him die over and over and over and over and over and over and over and--

I looked away every time. I still do. I cannot subject myself to that. I can't start to believe that human life is that disposable. It isn't. It is not.

I made a fatal mistake the day I was born. I'm going to spend what's left of my life paying for it. 

Oh yes, June is the anniversary of the other other massacre I never processed. The other other mistake I made the day I was born. 

What I'm trying to do is not talk about death. I just want to place somewhere, very carefully, the evidence that I was alive. I was here. I am here. I'm real and I'm alive. I want to continue to be alive after I'm dead. Maybe even more so than when I actually lived. 

All I've done to this point is survive. Not die. Everything is so scary outside that this feels like a eulogy. So many people are already gone. How much more of this can we take?

I guess I'm bursting. I guess I want to say that the internet has kept me alive. That stories I've read about strangers I'll never meet kept me alive. 

The internet has always moved too fast for me. I just wanted a moment to stop and look back at it all. The art I've seen, and read, and written. The laughter I created, the laughter I gave, the youtubers who made my day, the ones I've never heard of except for when there's some petty bullshit to get involved in. The people who taught me how to sew, the absurd reddit confessions, the memes. The m e m e s. I could keep going.

I've spent so much of my time on different parts of the internet. There are so many ghostly websites, broken links, inactive accounts. People come into your life and disappear and I just want to say that it makes me sad. There's so much of me here.

I imagine that, if there is a future, a historian uncovers all the baffling internet bullshit. They'll try to make sense of it all, this time when so many of us had access to each other. They're going to discover ao3, a website built by people who wanted to tell stories. They'll come up with some ugly white reason for why BTS is so popular, or some straight reason for why fanfiction is so fucking gay. 

I want the plucky queer kid to find my account, find my grief, and know that we existed. We were real. We weren't okay with the collapse of our civilization. We were scared and we were tired. We showed up for each other anyway.

Hi. My name is Zia, I'm 25 years old. And I think I'm grieving. It's okay if you want to grieve with me. I'm not sure I'll have any advice for you, but I can listen.


	2. Parasocial relationships (p 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> bitch, JENNA?

**June 25, 2020**

**4:49 PM**

Why did I just watch Jenna Marbles cry on camera for the stupid shit she did in 2011? Why is this how shit like this always goes? Why is it that the president of this country can sit there, a whole r*pist and n*z*, but the person who let me watch her gentle dog delicately eat some food last week to make us feel better isn't sure if her voice is wanted or needed in the world?

Man, I'm pissed. I hadn't seen the videos of the racist shit she did but I'm gonna say that I don't care. They were privated because she understood how valueless they were and didn't make more content like that after understanding that. 

Actually no, I'm not gonna get in my head about this. I'm sad that someone I think is a good, changed person is not going to bring the good she does with her work into my life on Wednesdays/Thursdays. I don't even like dogs but I loved that long fucking horse thing. I really did. Watching that dog learn to climb stairs was once the most riveting, engaging thing I'd ever seen. 

I hope heaven is real and an angel gives you this message some day Bunny. I love you.

I'm going to go and try to write for the longest story I've ever written. It's pride month, long as it's fucking lasted, and I want to give the people keeping up with that story a little reprieve. I assume the gays have been going through it and if you're a historian worth your salt, you'll have the time stamps matched up and you'll know why.

I'm not going to search for others talking about Jenna's video. She has a lot of viewers and I imagine that the airways are going to be clogged with opinions and think pieces and I just don't have the energy to keep up with it all, much less Wade through it. I just want to be sad that someone I like has been given a hard time and leave it at that today.


	3. Parasocial relationships p2, electric bugaloo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I argue my case or something, idk

**June 26**

**12:56 PM**

I was waiting at a bus stop one freezing day back in college. It was getting dark, I didn't have a proper coat on because I was poor, and my shitty phone was dying. To pass the time, I was reading a fic from my favorite author. 

I was so lost in her story that I didn't feel scared. I didn't worry about when the bus would arrive, because her story was keeping me company. By the time I got to the end of the fluff piece, I was so affected that I wasn't cold anymore. 

The story was so cute and easy that I was blushing. After my phone died, I was still thinking about the story and still blushing about the story. When the bus finally came, I spent the rest of the way home in my head, replaying the events in my head over and over again. It just made me happy.

I don't remember the rest of the night but I remember that moment all the time. How a stranger I'd never met changed my evening and brought me peace. I tried messaging her and conveying how much her story meant to me, and she was lovely and kind, but it just didn't seem to click. Which is okay. 

I think about this author all the time. I followed her on the only social media app I could find her on, and I still do. She isn't in the fandom space anymore, I don't think she even writes fic anymore. I don't message her, we don't share the same interests I don't think, but even if we did....I don't know. The meat of our relationship is that she wrote stories that changed my life without her realizing it, and I'm going to keep the memory of her with me forever for that. 

I don't watch tv. I watch a lot of youtube. The majority of people who are in my subscription feed don't have millions of subscribers. There's a different discussion to be had about how quickly youtube became a capitalist hell hole, but I want to focus on is the impact of strangers on my life.

When a youtuber is looking or sounding different, I notice. When they're happy, I notice. When they change their focus, or change for the better, I notice. When scary things happen in the world, I think about them and wonder how they're doing. When they succeed, I celebrate with them. 

From my understanding, the nature of parasocial relationships is that they're one sided. One party is under the spotlight and cannot turn that light around to shine it on the spectators to the same degree. But I would argue that while that is true, the main subject of the parasocial relationship is aware of the audience, and that adds a layer of meaning to the relationship that sometimes goes unexplored.

For example, when I post multiple fics and have multiple people engage with it, I remember recurring usernames and certain comments. Sometimes, I throw something into a story because I know a certain reader will appreciate it. Or I'll feel bold enough to go through with a specific story idea because I know some readers will see the vision. To me, the impact that readers have on stories I share here is not insignificant. Not at all. And I want to try and analyze the parasocial relationships I have with other creators online in a way that actually makes sense to me. 

Because the truth is, BTS got me through college during the worst of it. Ashley from bestdressed moved to new york just before the global outbreak of covid and I was worried about how she was coping. There's an older lady in my building that calls me baby every time she sees me (it's a black thing) and even though I could never bring myself to actually talk to her, I think about her all the time and I don't want her to get sick.

I guess what I'm saying is that I don't think parasocial relationships are a bad thing. I think it's important to recognize them for what they are, but dismissing them as delusional fantasies of people we will never know is annoying and myopic. 

A friend of mine's mom has a picture of princess Diana in their hallway. A person she had even less access to than I do with BTS, or Ashley, or Jenna. I don't mock the picture or make her feel delusional. I understand. We may be the most social creatures in the world. 

I printed out the stories of my favorite fic author when I was in college and I keep them with me, to this day, because I want to remember her. I want to remember her kindness and how she made me feel. I don't think that was insignificant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so we've named the thing, now what? how do we approach parasocial relationships in a way that's honest? how do we set boundaries in this relationship? how do we respect each other? 
> 
> more thoughts later, maybe. I'm gonna go eat green tea ice cream for breakfast


	4. Chapter 4

**October 13, 2020**

**12:28 PM**

I didn't have a panic attack last night. I was scared to go to sleep because the last one was really hard, but nothing bad happened. I hope this continues. 

I'm nervous to see my tattoo artist tomorrow. At least half my face will be covered so if I start blushing, at least they won't see it. Or maybe it'll be even more obvious. 

I see a lot when I look into people's eyes now. I'm not always good at reading facial expressions but eyes don't tell as many lies. I know when someone wants to talk or when they're tired or sad or smiling because all I can see is their body and their eyes. It's weirdly intimate and I know people can read me in the same way, but I'd be lying if I said that I didn't think it was beautiful. 

My body doesn't hurt as much this week. I think it was sleeping on the ground with my friends that did it.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a small glimmer of hope. I think I'm starting to understand what a home is

**June 26, 2020**

**11:21 PM**

I've cleaned microwave today, inside and out. I scrubbed the stove until my arms hurt and the residue came off. I scrubbed the surrounding counter top and inside the sink. Using water to get water marks off the sink walls is a concept that always makes me think about the absurdity. 

Last week, I organized my bathroom drawers. I've been too tired to do it since I moved in, always either busy or catatonic, but I finally did it. I feel proud of myself. I can't think when there are knick knacks all over place and there's nothing hotter to me than finding a place for something and always putting it back where it belongs. 

I heard the upstairs neighbors stomp around and blanched thinking I'd be subjected to their incessant noise for hours on end. I think they have kids, that's why I hear sprinting and banging and thudding nonstop for days. When I'm angry, I picture myself marching upstairs and launching the little fuckers out of the window so I can sleep. 

But that's not a fair way to think at all. This is probably a family stuck together during a pandemic, with schools and parks and libraries closed. I don't know how seriously they're taking the virus but school is closed nonetheless. They are probably out of their minds going stir crazy, and not everyone is aware of how thin these floors are. I can put up with the ceiling-shaking thuds if they can put up with the state of the world day in day out. 

Wow, someone just ran across the room. I don't know which it is, mysophonia or sonophobia but god can I not handle certain sounds. 

Okay, the noise isn't constant. I won't be tormented for hours this evening. 

For a first apartment, I am incredibly proud of mine. I have a washer and dryer right here with me, I've bought stickers of closed eyes and hands to put on them so it looks like the clothes a meal for a giant. 

My roommate and I each have our own bathrooms. There is central air, which means I don't have to fumble with those in-window units that drown out all sound. I have a walk in closet -- a Joaquin closet -- and I'm going to create a quiet nook among my clothes so the air doesn't feel so empty. 

I'm facing a university, between us is a busy road. If a stalker tries to follow me home, they won't be able to profile or watch me from their car. We also have security, restricted access, and I have a security bar under my door. I feel safe in my home. 

I face the sun and some days, watching the light move across the sky to filter through my blinds is the only reminder that I'm alive.

I want to clean again tomorrow. I want to put the sheets I laundered today on my bed for god's sake and use my duvet as a duvet and not a picnic blanket to sleep on. I want to pick all the clothes up off the floor and wash them all because I don't know which ones are clean and which ones aren't anymore. 

Despite myself, I've made a home. I don't have personal pictures but my personality is uhhhh. Evident. From all the stickers and flowers and pink everywhere. Every bad thing that happens, happens to me outside of these walls. Upstairs noise terrorists aside (I was wrong, they are in fact doing their Olympic training at fucking midnight. Yay for me). 

When I use too much of my energy, I pay for it with long stretches of absolute exhaustion. I organized my bathroom drawers last week and if I didn't put things in their places, I'd be back to square one by the time I got the energy to get to the rest of the bathroom. 

Maintaining a home is hard work. I'm a perfectionist so when I can't keep it up, it upsets me. When the clothes end up back in the floor it's upsetting. What I'm learning, however slow the complete lesson comes, is that I deserve a clean, safe place to be when the world rages on. I am lucky to have it. I'm lucky I get to try, again and again, to take care of myself. 

Today was a good day. I finally got enough energy to do some cleaning.

 **June 27, 2020**

**2:49 PM**

****Yep, there they go. Thump thump thump as I sit here typing this, quiet as a mouse and not getting on my downstairs neighbor's nerves.** **

****Green tea ice cream for breakfast again, out of my pink kaonoshi mug. No Face the pink hijabi. She's carrying a bunch of hearts in her hand and some are spilling out because of how much love she has to give. I think that was the point of the movie.** **

****My hands are purple. I bought a hoodie a while ago and it showed up in corporate blue. Bic pen blue. The blue that's used in every single thing I'm ever forced to want to purchase or look at against my will. Billboards, company logos, labels on food packaging. Maybe at one point that blue was a pretty color. But capitalism has destroyed it so completely that I'm pavlov'd with a disgust/rejection response every time I see it.** **

****Same with corporate red, corporate green, corporate orange. I did notice a while ago that pastel teal was being tainted. I noticed it on Windows programs, website designs, cutlery bathroom products at walmart. It was such a pretty color, too. I bought a bath mat in that color and I can't stand to look at it.** **

****There is something to be said about how completely capitalism steals all my choices and Rob's me of my identity. But my hands are purple because I didn't have gloves and when I dyed my ugly blue hoodie (in the sink, the bathtub refused to hold the hot water temperatured for a dye job, it just kept draining out) in a hot pool of purple, what will be left is probably a different shade of blue. That matters to me. It matters that I picked my own blue.** **

****I'm gonna go finish this ice cream. At this rate, I'm gonna be all out before my next Designated Daliance Outside. I hope that's what daliance means.** **

****I looked it up. It does not. I also dropped my spoon and after picking it up, sent my phone flying. Championship.** **

****I'm gonna see how much writing I can get done today. It's always such an ordeal; find these notes, open these documents, which also contain your notes and outlines, read the words you wrote to yourself about the words you're going to write later. This is a terrible hobby.** **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh whoops, I fucked up the html. this is exactly why I could never be a programmer. shout out to the women that invented computers and programming and wrote programs BY HAND that put people in outer space and shit. witchcraft at its absolute finest


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the inherent romanticism of no contact delivery and the philosophy of hate

**June 28, 2020**

**4:30 PM**

Laying in bed, phone's at 9%. Charger in the living room. Gonna push this as far as I can. 

Just ordered a bitch ton of calzones. This better not be another turkish delight fiasco, that boy had no business selling his family for something that bland. 

I'm gonna answer the door with the crusts still in my eyes and the delivery person won't even know. I'm gonna yell a thank you down the hallway and just before they get to the elevator, they're gonna reply. I won't know what they look like but they will be solely responsible for feeding me. 

Sometimes people have attractive voices and I fall just a little bit in love with it. Hozier was calling me out specifically in Someone New, he addressed that song to my government name at my government address. 

I don't hear the knock but I have to get to my charger so here I go. Getting out of bed today.

**4:53 PM**

At the kitchen counter, coughing with a wheeze. This is the first sign all year that I might have it, which is...something. I probably got it from a package. Or from my roommate who's been dining out and going to bars and shit. 

We don't run into each other enough for me to be pissed, and neither of us are at risk as far as we know, but it's hard not to be livid. I'm going insane by myself, going out for supplies in a mask, and returning to my isolation madness and nobody in this city is taking it seriously. No one. 

There is a new virus, the vaccine for which we do not have, the transmission of which is swift and sure, the mechanics of which we still don't understand, with an obscene death toll attached to it....and people are going out and having parties and shit. Refusing to take the few precautions we have in place. 

How am I supposed to cope with that? Where do I put all this anger? I cannot imagine how doctors must feel right now. I'd fucking quit, I really would. We either agree that every life is sacred and fight to protect it or you sign a document saying that you were not an essential worker, you did believe in the virus, you refused to wash your hands and wear a mask and when it's time to rush to the emergency room, you stand at the back of the line. 

I really didn't think this country could get uglier but there's always a hidden trap card isn't there. 

**5:30 PM**

The calzones are....... bigger than I expected.

**7:20 PM**

Food coma. Taken out by 4 wings and 1.5 pizza slices. No longer foaming at the mouth with anger but the frustration I feel with the way things stand in this country is never going away. 

This is not a society at this current moment. It's a civilization cannibalizing itself for the sake of....well, a lot of things I have to assume. There is a complete disconnect from reality. Facts are no longer observable and measurable, people are no longer living or alive. Every time something goes wrong this year, there's a list that materializes in people's hands, waiting for a tally miserable enough to be added to their memoir. 

There is so much being said in regards to the meaning of life. Every time someone learns about the rising numbers of our dead, what they do next speaks volumes. I want to just be angry but it wouldn't reflect the whole picture. 

I could just be angry with the people refusing to wear masks despite full knowledge of the reasoning behind it. But really, it betrays how little emphasis there is in this society on science, or reason. People don't just wake up one day and decide to doubt every single thing they see and hear. 

This is a complex issue and I just can't fight the lethargy off long enough to untangle the knots. I'm not a philosopher and I don't care to read about what the others have to say. If they were so good, we wouldn't be in this mess. We'd be able to see reality for what it was and we wouldn't be arguing about exactly which humans' lives were sacred and which ones weren't. 

All I know is that there are too many people gone from a world that was fully capable of saving them but wouldn't. And it's the ugliest thing I've ever seen.


	7. Denial

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe I still have responsibilities

**June 29, 2020**

**7:36 PM**

This month has lasted a hundred years, where's the avatar. Where's aang. 

Laying in bed after a day of errands, veins throbbing. No way to describe the absurdity of needing to renew my vehicle registration as society crumbles all around me. I can't believe people still have to go to school, or work, and focus on inane bullshit right now. I just can't believe it. 

The treasurer's office was packed to the brim. It's the end of the month, on top of it being a halfway point of the year. People were there to pay property taxes and renew their registration. This was not the DMV. That's a different place, where they provide different service.

Side note, I hate how much of a hassle it is to take care of a car. If you want tires you go to the specific tire place. If you need new parts to replace the old parts of your car, you go somewhere else. Sometimes the place you buy the parts has people that can put the parts in. Most of the time, you go somewhere entirely different for people to fix the inside of your car. And you go somewhere else if you want the outside fixed.

And if you look like a young girl, the workers will lie to you, often, about how much everything costs. And if you're an unloved little bastard like me, you never had your hand held as someone who cared about you explained the difference. Not that I'm bitter or anything.

I have to pay rent tomorrow, they've paused late fees for a few months but that doesn't mean jack shit does it. I read about people organizing rent strikes in other cities across the country and I'm very proud of them. It takes a lot to risk your home on the off chance that enough of the people around you will join you to make a difference. I do not trust people like that, my lessons have been done and taught for a long time.

So I'm gonna pay rent tomorrow. And get tested for the plague. And sign paperwork at my job so that I can be marched to the slaughter regardless of my test results. 

For tonight, I'm gonna get stupid wasted. I'm going to write my stupid little gay stories. And in honor of those braver than me, I'm going to go through a donation list and give money to the people having a harder time than me. The ones who show up anyway.

It's not going to feel like enough, because it really isn't. It's just the closest thing to hope I have left in me.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the hoodie is not purple, just a more bearable shade of blue

**June 30, 2020**

**12:11 PM**

What day is it? 

TUESDAY. Despicable. I've paid my rent, pats myself on the back with barbed wire. 

I got tested for the plague, too. After she scooped out a sample of my frontal lobe, I asked her to buy me dinner first. She laughed, and so did her colleague. I miss making people. 

I don't know if I've already mentioned it but I've been really endeared with people's masked smiles. It's a different feeling altogether to only see someone's eyes and know that they're smiling at me. Why hasn't anybody else romanticized this yet, must I do everything. 

I have an appointment (because they're ~*by appointment only*~ and I hate them) to get my oil changed at 1:30. It's been a year since I last did it, I don't know exactly what the oil does in a car but I don't want to find out the hard way. I was gonna research the fuck out of cars some day and just iron out my self sufficiency but uhhhh. Everything is too much constantly and the stars have to align these days for me to have that kind of energy, time, and motivation. 

Today's the last day of June. I haven't finished writing the chapters I wanted to post for the gays and for the me. I march into July skinless, begging the world not to end before I've finished telling my story.


	9. Service Work (p 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the mortifying ordeal of asking why the oil change that was supposed to take one hour is taking 2

**3:13 PM**

I'm still here. My phone died at an hour and a half into waiting for my oil change. 

I tried to psyche myself up for the confrontation. I'm wearing my mask so my lips SHALL NOT shake upon my inquiry. The guy who has my keys hostage is nowhere to be seen. The guy at the desk is on the phone. I wait politely for him to finish, he's not the subject of my anger. 

He tells me he's gonna the culprit and ask for an update. I go back to the waiting room and start psyching myself up for confrontation number two. 

OUTRAGEOUS. I've been here for an hour and a HALF with not a WORD to inform me of what's going on. They obviously haven't started. I'm going to ask for my keys and deal with this a different day, at a different place. I'm gonna YELL and be UNREASONABLE AS I WANT. I'M ALLOWED. I'M ALLOWED.

I walk back to the desk. The key thief "runs into me" and was "just about to come talk to me". He's shaking like a leaf, can barely make eye contact. He's my height.-- oop. It's ready.

**3:48 PM**

HOME. THE DAY HAS ENDED. I KILLED IT, I'M SO PROUD OF ME. I really didn't think I'd make it out of bed, suck it me. You're literally so rude to us. 

Toss a coin to your witcher, oh valley of plenty, oh valley of plenty. 

I have to sing it on the days I'm too tired to stand there washing my hands for as long as I usually do. I didn't need a pandemic to push me to the edge of germophobia, I was already a citizen of that land. 

Needless to say, I did not use my Big Voice to yell at the mechanic secretary guy, whatever his position is. His ears were just too pointy. He was giving me too much squirrel energy, plus I liked his eyes. Lord forgive me, the white devil hath tempted me yet again. I shall repent by never going to that shop and looking at him again. 

If I'm ever gonna assert myself with a service person, I need an adversary that can take it. No pointy ears, no averted gaze, no shaking hands. Look me in my eye as I finally tap into the slow rage bubble building inside me these days and inform you that I do NOT enjoy the way you're treating me inside this ESTABLISHMENT. For now, yes I'll wait two hours without an explanation while you barely do your job. Yes I'm going to wish you a safe trip home, things are crazy out there rn. 

I was looking forward to standing up for myself in the small ways. I got a lot of practice last year fifteen years ago, but it wasn't over small things. When I worked up the anger to defend myself, it was for serious shit that was affecting my life. Doing just that was hard enough. 

I can't believe I'm just gonna die a lil bitch. This movie sucks, I want my money back. 

I forgot to grab clarifying shampoo from sally's booty. Goddamn it. I'm not going back outside this week, it's gonna be July out there. Phase 2 of this nightmare year. 

Maybe I should just stop listening to all the pretty black girls on youtube telling me how to take care of my hair. Nothing ever works for me and there's really no way to describe dousing myself in apple cider vinegar because the sage witches told me to. You wanna talk about clarifying, why was I naked in my shower smelling like vinegar for half an hour!!!! Do you know how itchy a.c.v. is. I poured the bottle directly onto my head. That's where my nose is. Attached right to my head. 

I'm gonna go eat. Not the calzones, that's been me the past two days and I still haven't made it through the box. I only got four. I really thought they'd be smaller. I can't emphasize this enough. I have never in my life been prepared to eat bread the size of a human head stuffed with secrets and cheese. You have to believe me.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the hoodie is not a more bearable shade of blue, it was just wet

**July 1, 2020**

**4:55 PM**

I have not reclaimed my individuality. I might bleach the stupid thing because I'm really really serious about my disgust for that color. But not today. 

I spent four hours and a handful of days doing something just to get nowhere. That's adulthood, really. I think the thing that makes me me is that I still have the chopsticks I used to stir the hoodie soup. (In the sink, which is now tinged blue until further notice). The chopsticks are lilac, and at the ends where they made the least contact, they're kind of pink. I think they're pretty. I'm gonna use them as an accent color for my room. 

They match my hair, but I don't see my room being done before the purple fades from my hair. A shame.

I don't have the energy to cook, so I'm gonna order out again. Even with food in my fridge. I'm going to not think about all the people that can't do that. I'm gonna avoid thinking about how reckless it is, to not save all my money for whatever the hell is about to come. I'm gonna try not to think about how wasteful it is, to buy more food on an expiration----

I'M GOING TO FREEZE THEM. I'M GONNA FREEZE THE CALZONES. NO WASTING. HA!!!!!!!

Okay one problem solved. Lemme go do that before I forget or something.

**7:01 PM**

In the closet, don't know why I crawled in here. Just got done typing a comment under a youtuber I like's video. It was a patreon one, she was having a hard time after getting some ABSOLUTE FUCKING COWARDS' comments under her last video sharing her sexual assault story. I don't know if my words did anything, or of they'll help her at all, but I left it anyway. 

Like me here, she said she felt comfortable sharing that patreon video because of the nature of the platform. I have more thoughts about that but I'm sitting in my closet, on my clothes, watching the sun do it's thing and light up the place. 

I ended up getting ramen from the izakaya downtown and the noodles are submerged in the broth waiting for me to eat them before they get soggy. The delivery person's voice when he said you're welcome sounded like my little brother's voice and now I'm so sad I don't want to be awake. 

I can't protect him from the world, I've never been able to, and I might never get to. Loving people is so very hard. I'm so weak. 

I know I just woke up, but I'm gonna take sleeping pills to get me back to sleep. My family is too painful to think about without the abject demise of society tapping me on the shoulder every day. 

I managed to do the dishes though. And clean the microwave again. I reheated something without covering it and it's been bothering me. I've also put all the dry dishes away, and wiped down the countertop and stove. I also told my roommate to double check the door because she left it unlocked. 

I was really proud of myself before I opened the door. I hope I finish the food I got, I really hate wasting.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> you put your right foot in, you bring the package indoors, you undress its clothes, you discard the biohazards, you wash your hands, you remove your mask, you leave the item on the counter for a week before opening it, let's call the whole thing off

**July 2, 2020**

**9:09 PM**

Wasn't gonna write anything here today. The exercise of quantifying the experience of the day and then documenting is an ordeal in itself, and it's why I'll never be able to take up journaling. Most of the time in here it's no thoughts, head empty. 

But I grabbed a package from my mailbox and saw, in the lobby, that someone had left oranges and apples on the table to take. 

I was feeling angry again, at the parties that are no doubt taking place this week in celebration of independence day. Feeling helpless that I'm doing everything I can to be responsible during the worst global outbreak seen in years and people are oot and aboot having fun like nothing's wrong. 

And then it's back to that place that says this isn't the whole picture. People don't want to die, they don't want to kill anyone else, there's more going on psychologically and if people are risking their lives to go to bars and barbecues, then that says something pretty fucking significant about the value of those outings. 

I think there's something really interesting to be said about the sheer number of people ignoring the virus and precautions. Saying that they're stupid and selfish is not an honest description of events. It's just not. But god if I'm not disgusted and angry regardless. 

I'm going to have my thoughts ping back and forth between these places, when there are in fact thoughts and head is in fact not empty. I don't know if my exhausted, overwhelmed brain will be able to connect the dots but I'm rooting for you girl. 

Anyway, I saw the table of fresh apples and oranges and it made me stop and just stare at them. There's been something on that table free to take countless times. I've put things on that table for others to take. Sanitary products, diapers, nonperishable foods, paintings. 

The paintings I found in a dollar store at the peak of the pandemic, before the lockdowns. Paintings of black ballerinas, and black hair, and black fashion. I grabbed as many as I could and I put them on that table, in the lobby filled with other poor, black people. 

The paintings were gone that same day. I wish I'd found the artists' names somewhere. I wish my first thought when I found them wasn't that the person who made them probably doesn't always have food to eat. I wish they knew that two of those paintings hang in my apartment. The same ballerina striking different poses. Their brown skin matches all the pink everywhere. 

I wish I could talk to the people that leave the food downstairs. About whether or not they're angry. If they wear masks, if they've been forced to go to work so that the state doesn't have to give them unemployment. I wonder if they keep up with the news, all the dead, or if they have to look away for the sake of their sanity. Like I do. 

I think I'm going to be okay over the next few days. Tall order, considering what goes on outside every single second, but it's been an okay week thus far and I'm banking on that momentum. 

Plus I think J * is going to hop online to deliver his testimony on current events (not real current events, never the shit that actually matters) and I for one am absolutely ready to gag. I have never cared about any of the involved parties and can't tell you the difference between two makeup brushes to save my life but I sure do have a front seat pulled up for all this mess.

It's nice to get caught up in meaningless garbage, let me never trash reality television again.


	12. Chapter 12

**July 4, 2020**

**10:24 PM**

Got up late enough that I know my sleep schedule is fucked. Still feeling kind of sick. Finished a cup of instant coffee I made in the microwave. Dishes starting to pile up. 

I got out of bed only after the sun set. I managed to get some writing done. I'm happy with the scene so I don't think I'll be rewriting it for the fiftieth time. 

Gonna get in my car and try to get a good view of the fireworks. I have a fantastic talent for getting lost so it's gonna be a while before I come back home. I'll refuse to use my gps until the very last second, as always. 

Not getting out of my pjs for this. 

Hope my migraine goes away. Shant take painkillers. Absolutely committed to being an idiot.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sometimes my thoughts are just fragments

**July 7**

**4:15 AM**

On the verge of crying. About what, I don't know. Today was a good day. All the clothes are off the floor and in the washer. Can't start it until I find other clothes to add to the bunch. I refuse to wash a sock by itself. I also refuse to create a new pile of laundry for just one sock. 

Roommate snoring. I'm glad. It seems like she's been having a harder time going to sleep and getting up in the morning. She's never late though. 

**July 9, 2020**

**9:18 PM**

At my closest friend's house. Both of us got tested and we are plague free. 

We just got groceries and she's stacking the freezer with everything. Very complicated work, sometimes you gotta get things out of their packages and just leave them in there naked to make room. I have things in my very own freezer that I could not identify with a gun to my head and I'm at a loss for how to make because the box with the instructions is gone. 

But my friend is smarter than me. She's probably unclothed only the foods she already knows how to make. 

We're gonna drop my groceries off now. Just wanted to document the moment. I think she's a tetris genius.

**10:45 PM**

Groceries put away. On the drive here, I had so many thoughts. I really wanted to remember what they were so I didn't forget. They felt important. 

I wish my mind worked better. All the time. But this is all I've got. 

Today is a good day. For all that I forget, I want to remember that. 

The night before I saw my friend, whom I've missed dearly, I remember sitting at my kitchen counter in the dead of night and finally crying. The distractions had all run out and the loneliness crushed me between the ribs. 

But I made it to today, a good day, because of you reading. In the present, in the future, in the past. Those of you leaving comments, those just hanging out for a while in the quiet. Thank you for keeping me company. It means a whole lot. 

I'm gonna go for a drive, with my friend, and I will think of you.


	14. Chapter 14

**July 15, 2020**   
**5:10 AM**

(Whoah. It's the 15th already. I'm adding the html post script and had to look up the date. That's jarring. I don't even remember July starting.)

In bed. Clean me surrounded by clean sheets. Tired but in the good way. Resting after doing a lot always feels right. Like remembering that's what rest and sleep are for. Most days I just go to sleep because I was awake, no special reason. I'm tired all the same. 

Yesterday was nonbinary awareness day or something like that. Didn't know there was a day. It does makes my new favorite item of clothing more significant now though. It's huge, like four times my size, and pink. It has a giant hood and when I wear it, I can't see my b**bs or my hips or my waist or my butt. I look like me. In my head there aren't so many curves to me. I'm still pink though, that dark, dusty pink. 

It has words on it, I hate clothes with words on them. They're never words I would ever actually say or about things I actually care about. This says "Spring Flowers Will Bloom". And, yeah. They will. It's true. 

I'm alone again, in my room. Before I went to visit my friend, I got a lot of cleaning done. My book case lamp - which is coincidentally the exact same one that's in Katya Zamolodchikova's setup in the new UUHHhhnn format and it makes me feel close to her in my dumb stupid way - is dust free. So are all the books on it, so is my windowsill where all my little plants are gonna go, so is the glass for their terrariums. They're not real plants, I don't want to be a murderer. 

I had to use window cleaner for the spotless look and I don't know why I didn't think of it sooner. I fucking hate dusting so I'm insanely proud of myself for getting that done. Of course it's all going to mean nothing two weeks from now but it's fine I'm not bitter at all. 

I remember that I finally listened to Taylor Swift's new album in the shower and as I was scrubbing my legs False God came on and now I have a new favorite song. The memory is starting to fade and I've played it enough times by now that it's starting to sound and feel like nothing at all I want to jot this down before it fades. The momentum carried me from the shower, where I EXFOLIATED, I HATE EXFOLIATING, and I seasoned myself with my baby oil gel and then I did other housework things that I don't remember a n d I dusted. And then I left for a week to visit my friend and gained back a semblance of my sanity. 

I'm going to waste it on little things, like watching shows, listening to music, and continuing to clean this godforsaken apartment. I already have my tacky, unsightly dollar stickers up, they're purple and teal mermaids. The wall is a very subtle grey and the stickers are the bad kind, the ones with a white outline of whatever the images are. But the mermaids are the guardians of this room and something about them looking as fake and cheap as they do makes me love them more. Who better to watch over my unconscious, drooling form.

There are so many details to iron out. The colors are teal, purple and gold. My sheets look like the ocean at night and I got, oh my god. We went to Ikea, and first of all I don't get it. The obsession with Being In There. It's just one endless store and when I left, I just had chores. I already have chores but I bought more chores. Now I get to build my own furniture and see how far the whip of my stupidity really snaps. And to add injury to insult, my feet hurt. At least everyone was forced at gun point to wear their masks. I loved that part.

Anyway, they had little step trash cans for like seven bucks and they were the exact green for my room. I ejaculated on sight and bought two. Those little things are so expensive for no reason and to have TWO? Luxury. Class. Every time I remember they exist (I got back to my apartment three hours ago and have yet to unpack) I get a dosage of serotonin. I can't wait for this floor to be vacuumed and these clothes to be moved for my plants to be set and my flowers to be put up. Can't believe I have to be the one to do it, though. Mindless. 

The trash cans can't even go somewhere else and wait their turn to get my proper attention because I have to be insane and have a theme for every room and corner of this place. Everything in the living room is too brighter and warm for just two demonic little teal trashcans. My room is kind of an anomaly in that way. All dark colors and cool tones. I mean, I don't match it right now in this onesie but I don't have to look at me. That's the best thing about me. 

I'm gonna go, I've forgotten what it is I originally meant to talk about. I've been here forever, it's 6:12 now. I always do everything too slow.


	15. Zendaya Relaxes on Japan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> thanks for letting me reach my hand out and say hi

**7:40 AM**

I have to say this before everything inside of me empties out again. (Someone should really fix the leak, the plumbing in this brain is faulty.)

It's raining and I just so happen to have caught it. The steady fall of water is helping me think, keep the strings of thought together. 

These entries started to feel like a bit of a performance for a second there. I really didn't think that anyone would read these, I'm still too self conscious to check my subscriber count to see who got fed up and decided to leave. If the number is higher than I anticipated, because I mostly counted on everyone mostly ignoring this, it would dent my confidence and make me reconsider being so vulnerable with people who really don't have an obligation to me. 

But it felt imperative that I do this, so I did, and I've found that I'm not alone on the other side. That the people who find this aren't all going to be data historians of the future, rummaging through the rubble of the past to piece our reality together. It isn't just the inevitable homosexual who finds this, finds the fic, finds the tropes and themes and castles and ruins and understands immediately what the fuck it was we were all trying to do here. They aren't the only people who see or hear me. 

There's this image of these hands painted on caves, Cueva de las Manos, in Argentina, that stretch for miles and miles. Apparently, they're from roughly eleven t h o u s a n d years ago, so one March 2020. Every time I think about those hands, I feel like I understand something - for once - about what it means to be human. 

Some of the things van Gogh wrote in his letters make my heart hurt to read. His paintings don't do shit for me but his words can make me cry. And even though it's painful, I wouldn't unread a single word. Not one.

There's a man who mows the lawn of this empty college across the street and I want to know what he thinks about that. I don't watch him, I hate the concept of being watched by someone I can't see, but I do wonder. Does he think it's absurd, too? Probably. 

It started raining today, so he had to leave. He will never know the irony of this. A morning where I'm not forced awake by the hateful growling of an industrial lawnmower and I'm not even asleep to enjoy it. He will never know. He can probably guess, though. 

A lot of youtubers have started doing more livestreams since the end of the world. I can never catch any of them, but sometimes I do, and it's...something. Definitely better than nothing. 

Freddie Mercury also makes my heart hurt when I think about him for too long. Like five seconds. There I go. 

I like memes. The internet moves too fast for me and I don't follow a lot of people anywhere so I either miss the newest memes entirely or catch the tail end of them. So many have stayed with me for years. Many are just part of my vocabulary now. Same thing with vines. Whoever did that Owen Wilson impression ruined my life forever. Waow is just a word now, used to express any emotion on the spectrum I feel. I've whispered "waow" with tears in my eyes. If I have children, then that vine is going to ruin their lives, too. And that person will never know. 

I mean, some people know. People get on social media specifically to make money or be famous, which is fine. There was just something about youtube before people started making money. And memes that grow out of the earth, infested with worms. It's why I like ao3 so much, but that's a different thought train to ride and I don't have the ticket. 

I love traffic signs. Painted roads and such. Go this way or die. Red means stop or die. It's all very flamboyant. Double yellow lines means don't touch me, don't look at me, don't breathe in my direction. For all of the earth, so that every person knows. We refused to listen to each other and it got bad, I assume. And then we decided on a language we could all speak so we could take care of ourselves and each other. 

It's so cool, genuinely. The number of car accidents that occur is nothing compared to what would happen if no one bothered. We get it right more times than we don't. I think that's cool. 

I don't know much about Frida Kahlo but I know I love her. If I could paint, I would paint car accident scenes. The moment right after impact, when people get out of their cars, acknowledge that they need another person to help them, and then call them. 

If it were up to me, I'd do everything by myself until the day I died. Even then, I would dispose of my own body. Spray a little air freshener so that nobody could smell me. How embarrassing. 

But uh. Someone made the bed that I am still laying on, 8:51 now and decidedly not asleep. Sometimes I'll see a stranger smile and it's enough to make me smile, too. There was a lady who had magenta hair when I was a kid and the first time I saw it, something changed in me forever. If I heard her laugh today, I'd know it was her. 

Sometimes I hear a song and it makes every agonizing moment that came before it completely worthwhile. Sometimes people step in cement before it's fully dry and they become part of a place for longer than they'll ever know. 

The phone I'm typing this on, I did not assemble, and if the website I'm posting this to goes away tomorrow, I hope someone reaffixes the shit and finds us all again. Every fic, every comment, my deranged ramblings here on the edge of the universe. It does not feel like a performance. I did this for a different reason entirely. 

If I walked up to the cave paintings in Argentina and held my hand out, I know that it would fit somewhere, perfectly. 


	16. Chapter 16

**July 16, 2020**

**12:05 AM**

IT'S A FOG OUTSIDE. I LOVE FOGS. I LOVE THEM. I DON'T WANT TO SEE ANYTHING AND I DO NOT WANT TO BE LOOKED AT. 

It looks like the inside of my brain out there. Representation matters. 

I'm gonna go get some of the ikea furniture from my car. I don't know how much I can carry by myself but it's the perfect weather to do it.

 **12:49 AM**

Finally grabbed my keys to go downstairs. There's a strange man in the vestibule, picking dirt out of his feet. I turned around when I saw him and came back upstairs. I'm gonna be hauling things I can't put down and if he's violent, I won't be able to fight him off. It's a foggy night, too. No one will be able to see me if I need their help. 

So I'm back in my apartment. I have drinks, cold ones. I didn't go outside today but I bet it was hot. I want to take them to him. 

The last man I gave drinks to threw them back at me. I thought it was hot that day too. He was speaking to himself a lot so I figured he was just having a schizophrenic episode or something along those lines. People with mental illness aren't violent, violence is done to them. To us, I guess. 

So I didn't expect him to throw the water bottles. They cracked open when they hit the pavement and it was all I could think about during my panic attack later that day. It took me hours to be calm again. Or, at the very least, stop crying. 

I'm scared of this man. I don't want to do this. I don't want him to see my face and learn it and come back to hurt me later because he thinks I'm attracted to him or even just attractive. I don't want him to hurt me now, for reasons of his own. But I'm gonna take the drinks down. 

I only have shit like guava nectar and sparkling lychee yogurt. Only obnoxious sounding things. He might not even want to drink any of them but I don't have bottled water. Here I go, though.

 **1:16 AM**

Not a man, just bald. Pretty eyes, pretty voice. Deep from smoking. I've always loved smoker voices even though I'm supposed to pretend like I don't. Always thought it was stupid to nag about someone's health after the fact. Smoking is bad but smokers are complicated human beings. It doesn't make them bad. 

There were too other people just outside, wandering the premises. I think they may be locked out but it's stupid to let strangers into the building at night alone with no way to protect myself. We have a huge sex trafficking problem in this city and I already look younger than people expect. I don't have anyone to save me if I'm kidnapped and whatever else. Just like the missing and stolen girls. 

I feel disgusting. Taking the drinks down to a stranger like I'm really doing something. Whatever haunts her haunted her before I got there. It'll stay with her long after tonight. 

I guess I hate people who use acts of kindness to delude themselves into thinking they are good people. I think kindness is a more complex and elusive concept, one I'm always trying to understand. I can tell when I meet kind people but I can't define what kindness is. I just know that I'm not there yet, no matter how much I'd like to be. And moments like tonight just remind me. 

For now, the best I can do is bring cold, obnoxious juice brews to someone who seems like they're hot. Just because if I was all alone at night somewhere and it was hot, I wouldn't mind some guava juice for company.


	17. Acceptance

**July 19**

**4:36 PM**

I have to evacuate my family before the year is over but it's gonna be absolute hell. Almost every country in the world has rendered the u.s. passport useless. The fucking irony. Those things cost a fortune and last I heard, they were going to double the price of all immigration papers. Green cards, citizenship certificates, passports. Like the cunts they are. Racist evil cunts who stuff babies and their moms in cages and gas them. 

So I'm not getting my passport anymore. I'm not paying all that money just to acquire something more worthless than dog shit. So I won't be able to see my family if I manage to get them out. Can't swim or anything. 

It looks like biden is going to get all the votes. Good for him. He couldn't even record a second ad where he spoke the words "I'm coming to you to ask for a big favor" coherently. I don't know how political ads are shot but it seems to me that someone along the line should've caught that before it ended up playing over and over again to the people they're pretending they're gonna save. So the people around him are just as incompetent as he is. Perfect candidate, then. 

I don't understand how I'm supposed to utilize my practicality in this country. This place is nonsensical, it's a joke, it's upside down. But four months from now, I'm supposed to unstick myself from the ceiling, land on my face, and try to find the door with my eyes swollen shut. But the door won't be a door, it'll be a crocodile's mouth, and I'll have to guess when it'll bite down and kill me. At least when alice was in wonderland she got to do make friends. 

I talked to someone from work for a while yesterday. Wait, yesterday was Saturday. Whenever the hell I was last outside. She got promoted this year and found out that she was pregnant. She said she wasn't the best talker but she made perfect sense. She seems like a very gentle person and the fact that talked to me for as long as she did made me feel a responsibility to her. I don't know how to describe it. But she's a writer and she used a gorgeous metaphor about relationships so she would probably be able to describe what I was feeling better.

So I'm attached to her, like the idiot I am. I also remembered that I have this ability that I'm actually quite proud of, even though I have a sneaking suspicion that it has nothing to do with me. I can talk to anyone, of any age, any background, any history, for hours and hours at a time. It's happened with people twice or three times my age, people twice or three times younger, who do all kinds of jobs, who see the world completely differently from me or the same. Ever since I was a kid. 

I only realized that it was something unique to me after me and a white man twice my age got into a four hour long conversation about all sorts of things. Toward the end I realized he was a trump supporter but it wasn't exactly hard to guess. We never talked about that though, thank god, it would have soured the experience. He's apparently a talkative person but that doesn't seem to matter with me. The quietest people I've ever met seem comfortable enough to talk to me and I don't know why, but it sure does make me feel special. 

Anyway, I got sidetracked. I realized something about hope that day I was outside (good times). I don't think I have hope for the future. One of the most haunting images of this year has been a picture of a black college kid with a back pack and a mask, sanitizing his hands as he walked away from a ballot drop box. He had just voted in the primary, it was right as canoli broke out I think, and I just stared and stared at that picture not understanding it. I didn't know why he was bothering.

The answer for why he had hope didn't come to me, I don't know if it ever will, but I understand why I still bother. To wear a mask, to vote (I voted too and I really didn't understand why), to donate to bail funds and gofundmes and sign petitions and comment something nice under the videos of people having a hard time who are going to be avalanched by dozens or hundreds or thousands of others that will pull them in different directions. To get my family the fuck out of here even though I may not go with them. To order from small businesses that I know aren't going to be around a year or two from now.

I don't have hope for a future, but I have hope for the people that do. As much as I don't think we'll make it over the garden wall, I'll help whoever I can to jump as high as they're able. It's just hard to say, you know. Don't reach back for me. You have to keep going.


	18. Chapter 18

**July 28, 2020**

**10:59 PM**

I'm the type of person that checks both ways even when the light is green. At a red, I stand either at the line or well behind it. Debris. In the event of an accident. 

I always safely remove the hardware. Every time. I'm trying to paint a portrait of my psyche here. I was once offered a small touring trolley to peruse with and when they told me that it didn't come with breaks, I didn't get inside of it. 

I double check that the door is locked every single time. I never have sex without condoms. I graduated college with no debt and money in the bank. I was offered two full rides, I worked the entire time, and I lived at home. That's how. 

Mmm. Between the two scholarships though, I didn't pick the one that gave me more money for books and would pay for room and board. I chose the one where the people doing my interview saw me, like really saw me. Actually heard me. Really understood my brilliance, even if I didn't and still don't. Not fully. Not really. 

I'm not always on time to work but I never miss a day. No matter how nearly I didn't get out of bed, or brush my teeth, or put on a bra. Smile with my lips closed, wear baggy clothes to hide the chest. Dig the crusts out of my eyes on the way there. 

My rent is paid for the rest of the 2020 year. My computer and phone cameras have stickers on them at all times. I have a ration of nonperishable foods and supplies. 

I try to never get myself into a situation that I don't think I can get out of. My tattoos were all walk ins but I'd had them on a document for years beforehand. The ones on my body are the ones that I've never wavered on. 

When I get drunk, I do it on nights I know I won't have obligations the next day. Barring maintenance, I don't let strangers into my home. I don't let anyone see me cry. No matter how justified I might be. 

There's this artist I'm currently obsessed with. Riz La Vie. His music makes me want to cry and cry without thinking. The lyrics from She Said have been haunting me for days. "Stop, she said it makes her sad". 

I just looked up the lyrics. They're actually "don't talk like that, she said. she said, she said it makes her sad". Interesting that I remember it the way I do, despite it playing only twenty minutes ago. 

I'm sitting in my car. I've been in here typing this for almost an hour. I'd stay longer if being alone in my car and staring at people in the night didn't feel so.....revealing. Like I'm giving myself away. 

The sighs I've let out have been hurting my chest with their weight. I hate bugs but the crickets do sound lovely tonight. 

Time to go inside.


	19. Chapter 19

**July 30**

**8:49 A.M**

New phone. New number. Manually entering the numbers from the old one into this one. Something painful about going through the names of people I haven't spoken to in almost a decade and choosing not to put their numbers in. Even more painful putting in the numbers of people I still keep in contact with. None of us have talked about any of this. Not really. 

Stopped at the name of someone who I still love very much. I don't think I'm putting their number in. 

Trying not to feel too devastated about it. 

I have so many errands to run today.


	20. Bargaining

**July - nope!**

**August 12, 2020**

**5:45 PM**

I never understood this phase of the grieving process but maybe I do now. I've never grieved before; bad things just happen, I say "okay" and I keep it moving. Then weeks, months, years and years and years later I wonder why I can't breathe at night, why the lights have to be on, why I can't be alone with my thoughts in the quiet. 

This year, I was going to bloom. I'm stubborn as a bull, if I don't want to do something, no one can make me. I'm currently in a fist fight with unemployment because they want me to apply for jobs - multiple! - every week when I already have a job. I've called to confirm that this asinine bullshit is really my fate and the answer is yes. I have to apply for other jobs, and when those jobs call me back I have to say no thank you. I already have a job. On and on and on until they catch up on paperwork on their end.

The people that work unemployment understand how stupid this all is, it's not their fault. In fact their lives are put in danger because now people are walking in, pissed the fuck off and rightly so, masked or not. Meanwhile the governor gets to sit in his mcmansion as his assistants take call after call after call or just let his voicemail fill up. 

So I haven't been doing the dance. I've been filing weekly, filling in the asterisks so the system lets me through, and submitting incomplete shit because I did not cook the virus up in my back yard and I'm not going to be punished for applying for unemployment for the first time in my life during a g l o b a l crisis (sans New Zealand) suck my dick and sue me about it. 

Anyway, so I'm stubborn. And if something is too unpredictable to engage with, I'm usually not going to do it. And that is a terrible way to live life. Everything is unpredictable (hello 2020) and people are infinitely complex and so am I and there's no way to engage with that without trying. Like really trying. Being uninvolved is safer and makes me feel more sane but I can't keep hiding from life forever. 

Went to my first drag brunch this year and flirted with a girl. And by flirted I do mean assumed that her girlfriend, who was right there, was her friend (realized this weeks after she cackled out loud at me) but she let me down easy. She was the awkward type, so fucking cute, and I'm awkward too but in a different way? So the interaction was a mess but just when I thought I had made her uncomfortable she....shook my hand. Honest to god shook it. And everything was okay. 

I didn't explode, I didn't get arrested, my gay friends patted me on my gay back for my gay efforts. We were sitting a few chairs apart by the bar and I avoided eye contact the entire time after but even though it was uncomfortable, I was fine. I don't know what I would have done if things lead somewhere, honestly. I'm constantly broke but I don't like people paying for me. Going out is expensive, making food at home is manageable but I think it's intense to invite someone over so soon and then cook for them? But maybe it's not. It's weird with men but I'm not cooking for a man lmfao. That's a different minefield of expectations I'm not careful enough to maneuver, I'd end up spitting in the poor guy's eye for even asking if I can. 

I flirted with someone on new year's and by flirt I do mean I offered her my coat three times cuz it was freezing outside and she said no after the third and then I finally dropped it and we didn't say anything else after. That one makes me want to slap my forehead every time I remember it but she didn't know what she was doing either and I don't think badly of her for that. I just don't know how to give myself the same grace. 

I was going to let myself be a fuck up on the outside this year is what I'm trying to say. Put my foot in my mouth and let myself be human. Because I already know how to apologize if I hurt someone and I already know how to listen if it's a kind of hurt I didn't realize I caused. 

I was gonna try dating. Even though I know that the only options with that are: waste your time and it falls apart, get into a relationship and start heavy lifting to do the work to take care of each other, or eventually break up. None of those things are things I feel equipped to do. What if someone falls for me and I'm too empty to reciprocate and I hurt them? What if I fall for someone and they don't feel the same and I stop functioning? What if they use me? What if I use them? What if what if what if?

This year I was gonna put all that agonizing aside and just be a person for fuck's sake. I was gonna try to make new friends, even though adult friendships are difficult to make. I was gonna tell more people I missed them. I was going to invite people over even when everything was a mess and if they thought differently of me afterwards, let that be it. I was going to develop my skills so my hobbies felt more satisfying. 

Sewing clothes I actually want to wear from materials I already have. A better understanding of color theory (I turned the green/teal in my hair to purple with the color pink and goddamn if I didn't feel like a wizard. Unfortunately, I was also toning the yellow in my freshly bleached sides to silver/grey at the exact same instant and left it on too long so the pink would do its job ((on the other strands)) and the toner made my regular black hair copper. So the wizard I am is Howl and yes I did turn to goo afterwards because my hair looked ugly). 

I started two different notebooks for Korean, both for indie songs/artists I like that don't get translated. One is to write the songs out in Korean and translate every single word, verbatim, using three different translation tools and my little Korean dictionary. The process is long as hell, it takes forever to undo a three minute song, but the satisfaction I get when I unlock the meaning of a really deep, beautiful song? Unmatched. 

The other notebook is to write down the songs as I hear them, Romanized. Pronunciation gets muddled when people talk fast, or sing, or change intonation for a rhyme in a song, or if they have a dialect accent. So getting down what I hear and translating that also helps me understand the language on a different level. It's strange, I learned how to read Korean in one night, but itself taken me years to begin understanding it. I enrolled in a course at Yonsei university in an effort to get a move on with this process and then June happened and just like in 2016, I had to look at the faces of countless dead people on my feed and doing homework couldn't have been further down on my list of priorities. 

I just remembered I have a notebook for cyrillic; I decided one random night that I wanted to learn to read Russian and then I started and then I didn't continue. Same with Chinese, though I do know one word absolutely by heart. The character for person. Human being. It's so simple, so easy to remember. It makes me feel like it was almost on purpose. I remember someone describing it as the image of two people leaning on each other and I really wish I could forget. I'm not good at leaning on anyone. I think the oldest most sustained use of written language expects a little too much from me. 

I expected something different from 2020 and different sure is what I got. But I'm once again disappointed in myself. A worldwide catastrophe wasn't enough for me to call my mom more often. 

I remember January first. I was driven home by my best friend. We dropped everyone else off, hungover and quiet. (That fucking tweet about dropping the homies off and it's the Spongebob characters walking shadowed toward the sunset with their heads down. It makes me laugh so fucking hard because it's miserable and true.) I had a hickey on my neck from a guy who couldn't stop staring at me, and I was considering calling him because those are my favorite kinds of guys. 

It was cold and barren, the city looking dejected through the branches of trees that usually hid this fact. It was eerily quiet, too. Nobody walks anywhere in this city, so every once in a while it feels like I'm living here all by myself. It felt that way on the first. I couldn't help asking, where was everybody? Why does it feel like the end of the world? 

Things had been getting worse and worse until that point so it wasn't like things didn't seem apocalyptic already. There was just something about that day that made me think, before it all ends, I wanna try living. Just once. There's more to this. 

And then this year happened and now I have to say goodbye to everything I wanted to be. Safe. Brave. Loved. Content, like deep down, deep deep. The worst part is the waiting. 

I've had Anne Frank's diary for years. I've been so scared to read it. How would I process what was done to her? How would I feel at the end, when the book ended abruptly? What would I do if I ended up loving this kid that I know I can't protect? 

Today, the only question I'm going off of is this: what would little Anne Frank think about the rest of the fucking calzones that are still in my freezer?


	21. Chapter 21

**August 19, (what the fuck), 2020**

**5:47 AM**

I guess it's important to note that if I'm not writing here, I'm not being plagued by worry or pain. This is an outlet for things like that and sad as it might make you to read, I'd like to say that when I'm not here, I'm okay. 

I've had a wonderful couple of weeks, in fact. I can feel things getting bad again but until I can't handle it anymore, I'm doing alright. Getting out of bed, getting out of my head, getting on.

For the time gaps between logs recently, I've gone swimming in a river under a full moon (she was protecting me). I've built all my ikea furniture but one. Two littler pieces turned out perfect. My bookshelf is Frankenstein's monster, I broke one of the planks holding up the sides and then taped it together because it didn't snap off completely. A back panel isn't going on it at all because something something I'm not a lesbian. Now I just have to get it off the floor (I refuse) and see if it stands (it won't) and if it does, wait for the day it falls over and crushes me. It will be a beautiful conclusion to my fruitless, two day labor. 

I've written fic. Writing is excruciating and I hate it. I can't post anything yet because I'm not done writing something else for it and it's all very very annoying. I don't take pride in word counts the way I do in character counts. The number of times my fingers have made contact with the keyboard. The physical labor of it. I just opened one of the documents and for the 2, 661 words in it, I've hit the keyboard 14, 799 times. Fourteen _thousand_ times. That's insane. I'm really proud of myself for that. 

I've - jesus, the insane squeak of something inside the semi at this light almost melted my teeth. I've also been reading, something I haven't done for years. I don't read books, I don't read fic, I don't read manga, nothing. My mind can't concentrate like it used to. But these past few weeks, I've read four and a half books. All ones I've already read but it's been a clean half decade since I touched any of them. I skip all the parts that bore me about the plots and get to the things I want. I remember reading the boring parts with my teeth grit so I didn't miss anything crucial and it's funny how that hasn't changed. The hedonistic way I consume what I like. But I guess that means I've read two and a half books then (if we're counting, which I am).

I'm enjoying certain things better as an adult than I did when I was fifteen or seventeen and isn't that just a big shock. Some of these books had no business being in my hands but in my hands they were, and I'm glad for it. I'm going to return to them when I'm thirty-five and see how all the new ways I've changed affects my perceptions. I don't really have memories of growing up and I'm disconnected from the feeling time passing, but it's a surprising little fact about life that I can look at something I loved when I was younger and love it with better, older eyes. Delightful. 

I've bleached my hair again. I'm gonna go white by the time this year ends, just watch me. I'm finally gonna have the silver/white hair I've always wanted (and then just like every silver haired anime character, I'm gonna fuckn die ((joking! I'm joking 2020, okay....my real death is gonna be 2021.)) I look insane right now and honestly, it's about time the outside matched the inside. Tired of going outside in a bra and shit while the earth splits in half. I am not the crazy one. My hair is just going to be blue and purple for a while. 

So life is manageable. Dishes pile up but it doesn't hit in that way where everything else is upside down and it's just another blow, just another thing that's ugly and difficult. They're just dishes and I'm just tired. I'll get to them when I do. 

I feel a bad stretch coming, though. My favorite foods don't taste good. I don't want to watch my favorite shows, and when I try, I just don't care about them. Building the furniture didn't make me happy. I'm scared I won't care when I finally turn silver. I'm scared that when I get to the end of this book with this happy ending, I won't care about that either. 

I can feel myself getting bad, but today I'm good. And if it gets too bad to handle, I'll come back here.


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> time capsule

**August 21, 2020**

**12:07 PM**

Bangtan just had a comeback. Haven't listened to anything yet. Only recently heard On and Black Swan; haven't listened to that album either. They move so fucking fast. Like the rest of time, they left me behind in 2017, too.

I don't know how three years have gone by already. I haven't processed any of that time. I did start a time capsule that year though, of things I didn't want to forget. It still feels like it's 2017 so I don't think anything in there will be too much of a trip. But let's see.

Smells good in the jar, from the wooden pine kid. First paper, ink absolutely faded. Can't tell if it was the color of pen I used or just.... time. All I can make out is "worked with WordPress" and "conference call with people from all over the state". I remember that, my internship was so cool. Paid, too, because I'm amazing and even in my major I was able to get a paid internship. Not bad for a first gen.

Second paper. Holy shit, it's the ink that's faded. This jar has sat on my windowsill and the sun decided my words were hers for the taking. Good thing I opened this before it was all gone. I got soaked in a torrential downpour and had to wait inside a gas station for it to pass. I remember that, my best friend was with me. We almost died getting home because the water was so high. I like that memory. "It fell like we're being christened, like two homos". Because it was pride month and we saw a double rainbow afterward. 

Oh god, there's a back side. Half the page is faded. "Mom was nice to me after blowing up on mother's day". I remember that. I had to return her card because I knew she wouldn't care. We don't do cards anyway.

Someone I know graduated high school and I was very proud of her. There's a back page here too but it's eighty-five percent faded away. 

Another piece of barely legible paper. The backstory of the mothers day card: my mom thought I was just and about doing drugs. I was not. That did not matter. 

Oh, this is a big one. 

"... people, though...." 

".... keep them..."

"...the first time, every..."

"...handle it..."

"....the airport today....hope she got to drink..."

".... the ending in a lot of....endings the most, as it turns out. Especially unfinished endings. Cried a lot....I will always love her writing." Wow, this is about that author I love. Consistent.

".... keep people at a distance....."

".... won't be responsible for them..."

"He said he wished I..... reliable. I told him that....have known from the.....told him from the beginning.... wasn't."

"...might give me..... enough for me..... Nothing.....be enough for anyone.... surely."

"... I'm going..... Maybe it isn't....Got drunk AF. Because.....he was going to miss me." Oh. I remember.

My boarding pass is in here. I saw bangtan live in 2017, they were my first concert. Organization was such a mess that we missed Not Today. Every time I hear it all I can think about is the cruel irony. I got tickets for the second closest seats to them and still, it felt like I was too far away. And this was just as the wave was cresting, before they became....uh. Scary powerful. I've heard them on the radio here and in department stores and every single time, I feel like I'm hallucinating. Ha. Hallyucinating. 

Every time since then, I have to hear about BEE-TEE-ES in the mouths of people who obviously don't care about them, from the mouths of people who don't think they deserve their success because they're mainly racist and mainly because of their audience: a group of people considered beneath them, etc etc etc. I could go on and on for days but I won't. This is about realizing Jungkook isn't nineteen anymore and trying not to let my head spin. I don't know when I'll truly process their fame, they just got done breaking another record I didn't know existed. 

The concert was bad, but only because my brain is bad. I couldn't quite fathom that I was there with them, and every time I looked into the big screens to catch the things I couldn't see, I felt like I was watching a fancam. I didn't feel happy, I didn't feel sad. My favorite songs came on and I didn't really enjoy them. I couldn't shake the feeling; whatever it was. Like time had already passed and I was looking back at the memory and I couldn't believe how young they were. Like nostalgia for something that hadn't come to pass yet. 

Hoseok is unbelievable in person though. His presence really filled that room, I was half in love with him by the time I left the city. 

Okay, next paper. 

_This place could be beautiful, right? You could make this place beautiful._ \- Maggie Smith. The words on this one are entirely legible. What is this, a Miyazaki movie? How dare the sun do this to me. 

Next paper. January 31st. I went bowling with the gworls. I remember that. I hate bowling. "Sent love postcards to our senators." DISGUSTING. Why would I do that. "Went to refugee rally." Ohhhh. This was two months after the 2016 election. White people fully in their feelings about the state of the world. It must be hard for them, poor things. To realize that the world is uglier than they could ever imagine every four years. 

The sheer amount of (white) people I had crawling up my ass asking how we should fix things? That's a different hate crime all on its own I think. I was a traumatized college student, among other things, and people with houses and money and resources and access to therapists and friends, probably, were asking me how to fix everything. I couldn't even be terrified in peace. 

Everywhere I went, dozens and dozens of white people sobbing in shock. I thought that would be enough of a wake up call but here we are, in 2020, two months ago I drove by our downtown area to see armed militia with tanks on one block, and white people having dinner ten minutes before curfew (anybody fucking remember c u r f e w?) two blocks after. Dinner during a highly infectious viral outbreak. Dinner. 

"Ate not so sweet and sour shrimp." 

"Didn't go to class but it's okay (even though I'm nervous)." 

"Tired but happy." 

"Quiet in room...." Sounds like I had a big day. Next paper. God, when will this end, I'm tired of remembering. Oh okay, two of the papers are more flight info. I was really proud of myself for doing that, flying across the country by myself. I remember sitting thigh to thigh with a very warm man and Hating That. Also got really nauseous and a kind lady directed me to a pepto bismol when I stumbled in basically crying for one. Also had the blandest chicken biryani of my life because I was in a very white city and made the mistake of asking for mild, my usual order. 

Okay, one last one, finally. 

My baby brother hugged me and told me he loved me. 

My other baby brother and I talked about "white supremacy (hello???) and underground cities and black holes and the universe and if matter can't really be destroyed. We talked about Islam and the false place homophobia has in it, and Steven Universe, and Rose and Pearl. We're supposed to watch it together." We did, an entire marathon. Beautiful show. Apparently the fandom is an oozing, festering wound so I'm not going near it with a ten foot pole. I'm just going to enjoy the memory of my favorite show with my little brother. 

And that's all that was written. I didn't keep up with the notes because I'm me. I wish I had, though. 2017 was the year Jonghyun died. I would have liked to know what I was thinking or feeling. I remember just emptiness for weeks and weeks. And then I finally cried and I was grateful for the release. Still haven't cried about Sulli. Still hasn't really hit me. I can't listen to Dorothy almost at all. 

She's the reason why I make sure that whenever I have something nice to say online, I say it. I wish more people had said nicer things to her. Maybe it wouldn't have come to that. Maybe she'd still be here if she knew that at least one person really, truly, did want her to be here, and didn't hate her at all. 

Maybe it wouldn't have made a difference whatsoever. I don't know.

Sorry, I got way off track. I was talking about the memories inside my time capsule. I guess that's what this is, too. I'll never be twenty-five again.


	23. Chapter 23

**August 28, 2020**

**2:48 AM**

Have seen many a man sitting alone, at a table, in the dark, at various places in the city over the past few days. If men weren't scary, I'd sit with them and ask what was on their mind. 

Is it peaceful? Is it hard to be alone at home? What has the pandemic taken from you? What do you anticipate it'll take next? Is there even anything left to take? 

For me, the answer is yes. It's an answer that scares me. 

Another person is trending somewhere on the internet for being targeted in a hate crime. I don't know his name. I can't look, I can't keep doing this. 

Michael Brown's death finally hit me just this month, all these years later. I saw that picture of him sitting with quiet dignity in his graduation outfit, posing for the picture, and I just couldn't stop crying. It's so hard to make it through school. My pride in him crashed against the reality of what was done to him, what his great accomplishments had been reduced to. He was just a kid who worked hard. 

I don't know how many more names I can learn. How many dead children I'm supposed to carry with me. I can't take much more of this. 

I let a whole pot of rice go to waste. I'm upset with myself about it. It turned out perfect. Just couldn't get to it all in time.

 **September 3, 2020**

**1:06 AM**

I saved this as a draft because I had more to say. I can't remember what it was now.


	24. Chapter 24

**September 3, 2020**

**1:14 AM**

One unexpected way this year has been kicking my ass is with big, irrefutable realizations about who I am. I don't consider myself to be particularly introspective, I honestly just feel like a ghost moving silently from day to day. Fundamental truths about who I am as a person completely elude me but oh no, not on twenty twenty's watch.

So I've had to look myself in the mirror without hiding behind a false cloak of self hatred - one that causes me pain all the same but that ultimately isn't a true reflection of my flaws - and really see my ugliness for what it is. Tonight, I'm apparently not allowed to look away for even a second. Any micro second that I'm not distracted, the realizations barge into my mind unwelcomed.

It's such a shame. I was feeling really good about myself lately. I've felt beautiful, and powerful, and rare, and limitless. I would've savored those feelings if I knew I'd end up here. 

There's someone I want to contact. I want to ask them to keep me company, to stay the night and tell me their secrets. I want to see if we make it out alive together. I want to know if they'd keep me, even after the lights go out. I want to look them in their eyes and ask them to touch me. I don't beg, I don't ask anything from anyone, but it's cold enough under my skin that I might just ask. They look at me like I'm alive and I want to know if they're right. Desperately. 

And it's those thoughts that make me retreat. I've spent most of my years alive wishing that I wasn't. I made no true friends because I don't want to leave mourners behind. The friends that stuck like glue, and the family that I don't really belong to, are going to suffer enough. Ghosts don't belong in this world. Even if they have a name. 

This person seems good. They have clear eyes, clear enough to see me. I want them to....god I'm gonna gag. I want them to wrap their arms around me and tell me that everything is going to be okay. I want them to take my breath into their lungs and keep it there after I'm gone. I want them to lay in my bed and leave the scent of their skin behind in the sheets. I want them to teach me how to love them. I want them to ask me for everything. I want to try and give it to them. I want them to wear my hoodies and laugh at my jokes. I want them to say my name, just so I know what it sounds like in their voice. I want them to say I have terrible taste in music and even worse taste in decor. I want them to stick around all the same. 

So I guess I don't deserve to be loved. That explains why I will never ask for these things, no matter how deeply I might crave them. Playing dead for a quarter of a century has left me ill prepared for life. Who would have thought. 

Back to pretending I want nothing and need nothing. Even though, the entire time, I'm a black hole of a person desperately absorbing any and all sources of light.


	25. Chapter 25

**September 4, 2020**

**2:04 PM**

Just got off the phone with my internet provider. I got a letter from my building last week telling me they were going to stop providing it through them, so we had to all either start over individually with the same provider or go some place else. 

This wasn't on my list of Bullshit for the month so immediately, I don't want to be dealing with this. We were given a five day window this week to take care of it. I like to get things done before their deadline so I hate this. I didn't set alarms to keep track of what fucking day it was (idiot) and shot up in bed yesterday first thinking I needed to pay rent (I didn't) and somehow remembered the internet deadline. 

So I called. Two hours of holding and getting transferred later, the line randomly disconnects and I take a nap that turns into thirty REM cycles. I wake up at 1am. Perfect. I'll have a chance to lay around and not be real for hours, enjoy the sun coming up, and I'll be able to get my errands done. At 8am, 8:01, to give them time to put their shit down and sit, I call. 

Six hours pass of transfers. Holds. Answering a million questions. Transfers. Holds. On and on and on in absolute purgatory. The line disconnects for the last time an hour ago and I'm drained of all energy. I just start crying. I'm a stress cryer, very sexy of me. And as I'm sitting on this dining chair (still here, was using it to finally put my cherry blossom tapestry up before I entered phone call hell) forehead on the rim, just sobbing because I don't want to be doing this but it's Friday and today's the deadline and we're inching ever closer to office hours and I know I have to start all over again and swallow my frustration because it's literally none of the human beings on the other ends' faults, I get a call back. 

I answer and it's the person who I got disconnected from. He picks up right where we left off, in the middle of a street in hell, and he's surprised by my patience. It's been an hour of holding just with him, he doesn't even know about the others, and he thanks me, sincerely. And I thank him for the pat on the back because I'm raw and there's tears on my face and I'm tired of doing absolutely everything all by myself. He talks to me like he can almost see me sitting there, slumped in my chair, exhausted. He has a lovely voice. 

He does his thing and finds me something highly functional and scarily affordable. I am shook to my core. Money is going to be tight for a while and this was a bill I wasn't prepared for that I thought was gonna send me to the food pantry. And then everything was okay. So of course I'm thanking him profusely and oversharing about the hellscape of the last two days and how proud I am of myself for not raising my voice once (I also never forgot to thank anyone even when I wanted to remove my head, put it in a blender and press puree) and how much I appreciate his, specifically his, hard work so much and how I want him to be safe getting home. I wiped my tears afterwards and immediately had to jot this down before I forgot. Daniel……..love you. 

That's the story of how all I wanted to do was to rest my head on someone's shoulder for just one second, jesus fucking christ, and a person named Daniel reached through the phone and did just that. Being an adult in this society is just people playing jenga with one another's humanity. I try to put the blocks back whenever I can. Even when blocks get removed from my own tower and I'm so unsteady that I could knock a tower over just being nearby. It's hard to know exactly when it is; that the best thing to do is not touch a tower at all. 

Today someone gave me a block somewhere I was very wobbly and it made all the difference in the world.


	26. Chapter 26

**September 5, 2020**

**8:21 AM**

......So I just set my kitchen on fire. 

I slithered smooth and sexy into my kitchen excited to make breakfast and start my day like a """"normal"""" person. I've made my homemade fries/eggs/toast combo a million times. I questioned if I should make the fries from a big potato or a small one and would find my answer shortly. I picked the big potato. 

The oil started boiling over but I couldn't think about why that seemed like a bad thing. So I didn't lower the heat. And the hot oil poured onto the hot stove. Flames. Actual flames. I panicked because the microwave is above the stove and I couldn't reach over to lower the heat because of the Fire so more was just going to spill over. 

I've been cooking for myself since I was eight and I've never burned much, let alone set anything in the kitchen on FIRE. So I dumped water onto it and it got b i g g e r. And I'm panicking, picturing my apartment go up in flames, why have I still not made the phone call to get renter's insurance, the spread of fire is eating everything I've ever owned, ruining my stickers, so, so many stickers, and pink cups and pretty curtain and the ART and how I'm never gonna get the deposit back now and the fire alarms are screaming and my roommate is coming out and I'll have to explain how I burned my stupid food to the sexy fireman with their big stomping boots and they'll come in without taking their shoes off and I'll have to mop immediately and I don't have time to grab a mask, what the fuck do with masks during a fire, and oh fuck the stone cup of ramen packets and miscellaneous,  
Flammable, takeout packets is on fire too, gotta put it out, and then the flames burned out by themselves. 

The microwave looks scorched, there's smoke everywhere, I immediately turn off the heat, there's oil everywhere, I'm getting all the pans and shit off the stove and into the sink. I've opened all the windows and turned on the vents. The fries look swollen and soggy and I fish them out miserably. I already made the toast (in the oven, I don't have a toaster) so I'm hoping the bread soaks up the goop. My roommate helps me fan the place, and now all the smoke is gone. It's chilly outside. Can probably turn off the A.C. 

I was gonna make tea but I think I've done enough for the day. The fries are edible, lord knows they were in there for long enough. 

It's been quiet the past few months. I haven't been keeping up with the chaos of the world and it's felt pretty relaxed on a personal level. I guess that's how, just like that, summer's gone. 

Then five days into September and I'm dealing with nearly catastrophic upheavals left and right. I mean they've turned out fine, but I'm not into this edgeplay the universe insists on engaging me in. I've never started a fire in my life. I've never been on such an excruciating phone call. Really not trying to have other novel, harrowing experiences this far into the pandemic year, thank you. 

Soon as I'm done with this food, it's back to bed with me.

 **8:57 AM**

The fries are not edible.


	27. Chapter 27

**September 6, 2020**

**6:08 PM**

The last of the calzones have been consumed, 95 months later. I'll probably never eat another one again without thinking about 2020 so I'm not sure they were worth it. 

Organizing my knickknacks. Why do I have so many usb cords? What does one person need seven different pairs of scissors for? 

I did all my paperwork a while ago but I still find more papers. I used to cut out my name and address from each piece and destroy it but no longer. If someone dove into the dumpster, found my papers specifically, put the pieces back together correctly(I still cut them up), and then proceeded to steal my identity for nefarious reasons, I say they deserve it. Frame me for whatever you want, you've worked hard. 

Despite my best efforts, I'm sure my information is in some hacker's moisturized hands. Moisturized because of all the m*********** lotion, not self care. Although I do wish it was self care. People start trembling when I tell them to please stay safe now. I meant it every other time too, but it's nice that it's reaching them.

I exfoliated down to my last layer of skin yesterday, and changed my sheets, and put all the stuff back. If I'm tired enough, I'll just leave everything laying around and thus starts the distracting, disheartening layer of clutter that taunts me for weeks. There will be no taunting from my bathroom things. 

Ugh, I have to vacuum before the sun goes down. The urge only ever strikes at 2AM and imagine being the neighbor that hears that shit in the middle of the night. 

**7:50 PM**

Wow, I just put this down and fully walked away from it for hours. I am now sweating from aggressive wiggling and pinning flowers to my walls with tacks. A chair was required. Here's to hoping I don't fall off and crack something, insurance is but a myth in this farce of a country. 

Also, have yet to vacuum.


	28. Chapter 28

**September 8, 2020**

**4:22 PM**

A concert I was really really looking forward to finally got cancelled. I was hoping that they'd postpone it until next year or even the year after if that's what it took, but alas. 

There really is no end in sight. The commercials have changed from faux sympathetic, patronizing, tonedeaf bullshit to the usual. DOES YOUR MASK STINK FROM YOUR SHITTY, RANCID BREATH? ARE YOU PHYSICALLY REPULSIVE AND UNWORTHY OF HUMAN TOUCH? I HAVE GREAT NEWS FOR YOU. 

It's a wonder any of us are even remotely sane with shit like this constantly tearing away at any confidence we might manage to scrape together. I mean, I'm not sane. I don't even have a skincare routine. For this crime, my face WILL fall off and I WILL have deserved it. And if it doesn't, well. Who will even remember. 

Let's see, bright sides. It's raining outside. That was nice to wake up to. I'll be getting a refund for the tickets, that's nice. If there are no weird glitches on their end, sparking a pointless feud that lasts for months, I'll be good money wise through the end of the year. Might even be able to afford a new tattoo. 

That's where my person is, the one I can't stop thinking about. I'm less raw about it than I was last week, so if everything works out, I can calmly stare at their lovely face and not have any breakdowns in front of them. I'm a breakdown-free zone. 

I built the last of my ikea things yesterday (two days ago??? I don't remember) and it didn't give me a single headache. No missing pieces, nothing broken, nothing confusing, nothing difficult. In fact, it was relaxing. So I don't know where I stand on the ikea spectrum. Can I build it or not????? Do I have to be this bisexual about absolutely everything. Even my favorite colors are in between colors. Enough already, I get it, I'm bisexual. 

I did eventually vacuum. The flowers are up. Can't tell if I like them or not. I did laundry, the things too delicate for the dryer (I guess, I don't actually know if they are) have been hung to dry on my little octopus hanger. It's got sixteen clothing pins on its eight arms, it's the perfect color for my room and it's got silly little eyes on it. 

Deeply satisfying to have finally remembered to use it. It also matches the thingy I built. It's like a clothing rack with a storage unit on the bottom. Perfect for....something. It'll come to me when I need it. Right now, it's just holding the octopus and a winter coat up. 

Things I have to do for today involve the kitchen. I'm fully aware that this sudden spike in productivity in every other part of the apartment is so that I can keep ignoring the dishes and the stove and the microwave. Please. Leave me my delusions. I've accomplished everything. There's nothing else that desperately needs my attention. 

Finally listened to T Swift's new album. It's really good, feels very her, but grown up. I've seen videos of people suddenly defending her online and I think maybe they heard this album and they couldn't stop pretending that they hate her music anymore. Or maybe the algorithm picked up on the number of times I've replayed The Last Great American Dynasty and decided I wanted unsolicited internet opinions about Taylor Swift I do not. 

God, I have to feed. Nothing sounds appealing. Haven't had an appetite for much these last few months and I've barely cooked. I think today is going to be a day where I don't do anything at all. I'm gonna get those horrendous little gas station shots of alcohol and feel warm inside until I eventually pass out. Here's to a terrible hangover that makes me appreciate my body for all that it does for me day to day.


	29. Chapter 29

**September 14, 2020**

**4:39 AM**

UM. The galaxy has just been torn through by a mass bigger than any known star??????? Can....can I like. I'm five four, okay. I'm not tall enough to process this. I don't want to know about the dark matter. I don't want to know about the fires and the shootings and the starving people and the dead animals and the melting earth. I just want to fold these FUCKING clothes. Why do I have so many clothes!!!!!!! I don't wear any of them!!!! But if I need winter gloves 4 months from now, """"""4 months from now """"""""" I'll be pissed that I threw away my last pair. I just have endless clothes and no winter gloves ever. Fuck. 

I made progress. I organized the clothes on my bed, which I had to unearth from all corners of the fucking world by the way, like I just had a plastic bag filled with a handful of fucking clothes that I found underneath living room pillows. Why were they in the bag? Why did I put a pile of dirty laundry in a bed sheet and not only NEVER WASH THEM but then forget them in the dryer just when I thought I'd found all the clothes? I have a million socks and no socks at the same time. 

I folded all my towels. And my bed sheets. And the pillowcases, though I'm not sure why. I can't stand having more than one pillow on my bed. If someone else sleeps here they'll have to bring their own. 

I was doing so good until I learned about the fucking hole in the galaxy and the huge mysterious thing that made it. I don't have any bandaids the size of galaxies. I don't even know if the drug stores are open. I'm not very tall. If someone out there is fifty times the size of the sun or whatever, please put a bandaid on the Milky Way. I'll be down here, doing eternal loads of laundry. 

You know, I couldn't think of what the fifth stage of grief was? I could remember the other four, but the fifth one eluded me for months. I finally gave in and looked it up a few days ago. Depression. It's depression. Let no one say that the universe is humorless.


	30. Anger

**September 18, 2020**

**1:12 AM**

In terms of processing the constant agony that is 2020, I feel particularly stuck when it comes to giving or receiving comfort with the people I know. With strangers, I can acknowledge their pain and they can acknowledge mine and it's this simple, unburdened thing that helps instead of hurts. And then there's the people in my life. 

Several of my friends....""friends"", I don't know....have come to the realization that not only are we not close, they don't fucking know me at all. I've been radio silent about the effects of most of this hellish year and to them, it's registering as abandonment. I am now making it clear that over the years, whenever shit was bad or they were acting different, I was often the first to notice or inquire. And then years ago I realized that I could be mentally bleeding at their doorstep and the same concern would not be returned. 

So I let my anger run its course and adjusted my output accordingly. If I knew something had to be rough for someone who would never spare me the same morsel of thought, I shut the fuck up and let them handle it themselves. And every single time I was falling apart, I closed all my doors and put myself back together in private. Without resentment for the loneliness and the lack of help. Because I understood what our relationship was, even if I didn't like it, and the one thing I have to be truly off my rocker to do is ask someone to care about me who doesn't. 

(Shhh quarantine yearnings aside, okay, just pretend like I haven't already exposed my starvation for what it is and broken all my own rules by even acknowledging any of it out loud. Although, I'm not sure I can call the rule mine if breaking it feels bad.)

And now the same people who didn't care when I was too depressed to work full time (still am, isn't that cute?) and didn't care when I had medical emergencies and didn't care when I talked about one morsel of my childhood and didn't care why my relationship with my family is like that and didn't care when I was coming to terms with my identity and didn't care and didn't care and didn't care....all of a sudden expect all the empathy in the world from me. And are pissed I'm not holding their hand and putting them on my shoulder and burping them and shit. And the rage that has filled me with? 

Oh you're poor? It's hard to be by yourself? You're lonely? You're sad? You're getting horrific flashbacks all the time? You're drinking more than you should? Work is hard? You're empty? You're cold? Your self worth is in pieces? You're unsure about the future? You're deeply unhappy? That's unfortunate. Maybe if you stopped being dramatic, all of that wound go away by itself. Read a self help book or meditate or something. I read this one article....

Deep breath. I just realized that I have to spit this poison out before it infects me. I have to let myself be bitter about the friends I knew weren't my friends all along and find a way to move on. I just can't believe their fucking audacity is what it is. 

And then there's the friends that are decent people who I should probably let in, and maybe we can keep each other afloat throughout all of this. This requires work from me I'm not sure I'm ready to do. I don't know how to talk to people about my feelings, even if I can listen to them about theirs. I just hate that moment afterwards, when the air is still and you can't take anything back. You're weak, they know now, and there's nothing to be done about it. Have fun being weak, doing your weak errands, washing your weak laundry and weak dishes and watching your weak shows that are barely keeping your weak mind together you weak bitch.

I'm gonna go eat leftovers. Yesterday was a good day, I have to document that. It was exhausting but only because I woke up at 3am and was wiped out by 5pm. I just now woke up, so I'm sure I'll crash even earlier than that today. Gonna try and do some reading, maybe some writing. Maybe I'll even start Castlevania, I tried a while ago but it was all too gory for me. But apparently we have a bisexual boy in the show and I'm willing to put up with all of it for him.


	31. Parasocial relationships p. I don't remember

**September 19, 2020**

**4:54 PM**

I fucking hate the internet, I really do. 

I finally caught up with Ashley's newest video and the comments are jarring to say the least. They're dog piling on her about how privileged she sounds to be complaining about the things she is and it's clear to me they're taking their frustrations out on her. Some people have clearly been going the fuck through it and 2020 has been unbearable for them, some people are in the same city as her and having completely different experiences of the pandemic to her, some people are apparently concerned for her mental health, and I think that's what pisses me off the most. 

Some of the criticism is fair. She is privileged. But they all knew that when they fucking subscribed. That's why they watched her videos, to get the perspective of a yuppie coming into her own. They knew she had money when she did her video on apartment hunting in NYC, they knew she scripted and over-edited her videos when she acknowledged that her very self in a video she made. They knew she talked about her sex life, they knew she swore a lot, they knew she had mental health issues. They knew about how hard she works and her perfectionist streak and now absolutely all of that is a problem in some way or another. It seems like some people were just waiting for the tide to turn against her and are just coming out of the woodwork with glee. 

And this is how the internet always treats women, they just decide one day that they fucking hate them after years of obsessing over them and consuming them. But I'm especially furious that they're still doing this during a pandemic that's hard on everyone, in a video where she talks about how hard shit is for her, and while fully knowing that she's being avalanched by similar, or even identical comments all the while. Yeah please talk to me about tone deaf. 

Wanna talk about privilege? Why are you watching a six minute youtube video about a twenty-two year old and then taking time to write a comment about how much she upset you? Isn't there something better to do with your time? Why aren't you using those six minutes to read an article about what's happening in Yemen? Did you know a child died of starvation while you were complaining? Do you know some of your neighbors don't have phones? So you have the money to buy a phone and pay for a plan and pay for regular internet service. I think it's a little tone deaf not to acknowledge that some people have lost their jobs due to covid and can't pay for internet. Some people don't even have food, forget phones. Life isn't a movie. 

And then there's the comments talking about her mental health and I truly do have to laugh. Imagine reading all of these comments, most of them negative in one way or another, whether they be negative for valid reasons or not, and then deciding to type your hot take into the comment box and hitting send. I know some of these people see that what they have to say has already been said. I've seen so many fucking identical Very Concerned Remarks, so what's the thought process there? How is it actually supposed to help? Especially when you know you're saying it during a backlash of negativity? And you have the audacity to lecture someone else about irresponsibility?

I just watched a youtube video of someone make stickers and it was nice and relaxing. You know what wasn't my first instinct? To crawl into the comments section and remind the youtuber that the world is burning and there are other things to do and they're so privileged to even have a home in which to make stickers. And nobody else left comments like that either. Jesus.

I really want to tell this kid to mute her comments. This kind of shit can't be good for anyone and life is hard enough right now as is. But I won't. Because she needs to ignore the internet if she's going to get her sanity back and that includes ignoring me and my well-meaning, but ultimately unhelpful, concern.


	32. Chapter 32

**September, 22, 2020**

**5:45 AM**

Eyes wet with tears from laughing. Saw a series of face swap pictures and completely lost my mind. No matter how much I tried to recover, I just couldn't stop. 

It feels good to be human today. All my clothes are clean. I remembered to eat. I drank water. Not a lot, but I did. I can't sleep, but that's nothing new. 

Sometimes living is simple, breathing is easy. Laughter is the hardest force in the world to stop.


	33. Chapter 33

**September 26, 2020**

**1:05 PM**

Been up since 3am. Haven't left bed all day. Don't think I'll be able to accomplish much today. 

Unemployment kicked in. They've been doing lump sum payments every few weeks. It's confusing but I've been too tired to call and ask. I'm glad I didn't let them treat me like shit - well, worse shit - all those weeks ago. That I held my ground and refused to do their dumbass paperwork. None of this is my fault and I'm really proud of myself for not letting them treat me like it is. Even with the trouble it brought. 

I have enough for January's rent. It's almost the end of September, we're inching closer and closer to the end of the year. I don't like last minute fumbling, especially about problems I can see coming. The way this country has handled this epidemic has been mind numbing on a truly personal level. 

I figure I can give myself another month's leeway. It's cutting it too close for my liking, but I don't think I'm getting out of bed today and some Ethiopian food will get me to the front door at least. And the books I've been reading again had more books come out in their series. I can buy physical books for the first time in an eternity. 

I don't remember what new books smell like. And I don't really think book stores will last. 

It's hard, all of this, so hard. I can't believe I'm alive. Can't begin to imagine what it is that I'm made of. Something strong for sure.


	34. Chapter 34

**September 27, 2020**

**8:49 PM**

........So there's a rectangular wet rim slowly appearing on my ceiling and I'm thinking bathtub? Bathtūb? Tub d'Bath? 

I'm either about to have the upstairs demons in my living room sometime over the next few days or if I stand in the perimeter of that rectangle an angel is gonna materialize and fuck me good. 

Is 2020 gonna drop a ceiling on my head and kill me dead? Or will maintenance get here in time to save me? Find out in the next episode of Hey God, What The Fuck?

 **9:16 PM**

The terror of snatching items out of the wet rectangle's way? Unmatched. I was grabbing my Ethiopian food like it was a baby in a burning building. I was in the process of putting it in zip bags to be Consumed Later when I noticed the weird mark on the ceiling was g r o w i n g. 

The after hours desk lady legit said "Oh boy," as she took down my information. My knight in shining overalls has yet to arrive, I have little baggies for his feet. Asking for removed shoes has been an ordeal but once one compromised with plastic bags over his shoes and I was like genius!!!! So I have bags for him. Hope he doesn't try and suffocate me with them that would be soooooo random xD To be murdered in my own home by a strange man, never heard of that happening before. 

When will this man come get his baggies the waiting is killing me. Is the ceiling going to collapse in on me or noooooooooot.

 **9:55 PM**

Not. Leaking furnace. My home shall be intruded upon tomorrow to something something I don't even remember. The baggies shall be placed upon a separate man's feet. Should I set an alarm????? 

Nah they knock pretty loud. What must it be like to have fists that large? Imagine how many water bottles you could hold at once. 

This got me to clear my living room of all the unnecessary garbage though. Dining chairs are back at the - 

**10:31 PM**

Wow I just put this down and walked away again. 

Today was a big day. I dyed my hair blue (I hate it)(I don't want to talk about it)(Okay it's that disgusting blue I tried to get out of my hoodie with dye and couldn't, but on my literal head)(ironically enough, I used purple hair dye to try and shoot for indigo and that didn't work either, just like the purple and the hoodie)(I'm starting to think that this disGustiNg cobalt is supposed to represent me and that's why I can't get rid of it everywhere I go even though I think it's ugly). And I cleaned the bathtub even though all I wanted was to leave it there. I shant be framed for smurf homicide. 

I exfoliated again. It took hours and it was a very daunting task on top of washing my hair, which was taking the same hours. I listened to two new albums, TYN and sweetener by ariana grande. I don't think her music is for me but it wasn't a bad experience. Of the two, I liked sweetener more. 

Just finished a load of laundry (where are these clothes COMING from). 

Picture two black girls bumping into each other at the washer dryer with matching bonnets on, safe in their home. One is not a girl and the other has work tomorrow. 

We both expect to wake up tomorrow but I'm gonna put my bar under my door just in case.


	35. Chapter 35

**October 1, 2020**

**10:34 PM**

I go back to work in four days. I work with children. I don't know what to say to them about all of this. Acting like it's just another school year is insane but I don't know to get across how cruel what's happening to them is. 

How powerless must they feel? If they even realize the full extent of this horror in the first place. I know many of them are smart enough to be afraid. I want to tell them that they have every right. This is not their fault. They are being abused in the worst ways imaginable. Neglect of this magnitude...it's unspeakable to me. It's evil. I want everyone responsible to burn for hurting these kids like this. 

I want them to know that I don't think this is okay. Not at all. I'm not just another adult in their life pretending like everything is fine. And in a way, they're hurting me, too. They're risking my life, too, I'm angry, too, afraid, too. They deserve better than this and I do, too. 

I have to look into class actions. There's no way everyone involved is just okay with this. I just have to find the energy to be furious. And then combine it with the fury of the other people near me who want better.

 **October 2, 2020**

**12:20 PM**

Three days now. I've looked into nothing. I've called no one. I'm so tired. So so tired. 

I can't believe I have to go back to work. As if I wasn't barely holding myself together at work before all this. 

I've been thinking about the different types of reactions to covid here. I think I've said it before, but let me repeat it because I don't remember. I don't think everyone ignoring this is evil and wants us all to die. The smartest people I've ever known were empathetic first and foremost (and queer, maybe that's why) so let's try leading with empathy. 

Group A I think are hopelessly misinformed and mislead. They don't trust the government so they don't trust the CDC, surgeon general or no, Dr Whoever or no. They've been repeatedly neglected by their own leadership. They don't know what worker rights they have, they don't have health insurance, they feel alone and adrift and now they're on the internet. They're ready to believe in conspiracies because, let's be honest, real life has become so convoluted that it would take more time and energy than most people have to understand. 

And lest we forget the older black people. Who, in their lifetime, have been experimented on against their will in sanctioned, government research endeavors, gaslit, neglected, abused, degraded, hunted, and remain haunted. They have every right in the world to mistrust anything the government says. Unfortunately, this time, it puts them directly in the line of fire. 

Group B takes the virus seriously. They're following advice, social distancing, getting tested if they're going to be around others, who are also social distancing and getting tested. No restaurants, no parties, masks on, hands raw from sanitizing with increasingly suspicious chemicals. Going completely mad in isolation, developing horrific coping mechanisms, PTSD flashbacks left and right, taking up fun new hobbies, crying at night and unsure if we'll wake the next day, increased migraines and eye problems from device usage. This is where I fall in. Hi. 

Group C are in denial. They think everything is going to be okay by this time next year. Some of them are oot and aboot maskless because....I guess they don't get it? That it's not just their life they're endangering? They think they'll be fine if they get it, who cares. Their favourite restaurant just opened back up and they'll be damned if they don't...dine....inside, right there....maskless. 

Empathy is hard, but let's keep going. 

Group D takes the virus seriously and they're being forced to go to work. Unemployment in my State is making people apply for jobs otherwise they can't get unemployment. For being unemployed......because of......a highly infectious epidemic. Some never got laid off, so if they quit for fear for their health, they wouldn't be getting any money from anywhere. They wouldn't qualify for unemployment. So they had to keep working or fucking starve. Rent is still due fucking everywhere in this country last I checked. Baby formula is locked up in stores, so people don't steal any. Baby formula. Baby diapers are out of stock , I tried to get some to leave for the residents in my building who might need some and every single w*lmart in the city was out of stock. The experience was bone chilling to say the least. I don't even have children to keep alive during all of this. 

Group D is where the majority of people fall, I think. Some people from Group C fall here, Group B, Group A. The majority of us work low paying jobs. The majority of us don't have health insurance. The majority of us are nervous about rent, if we aren't already being evicted. The majority of us are forced to go to work, forced to be exposed to this virus, forced to die if that's what happens. The majority of us don't know what to do to stop this abuse. Rent strikes leave you homeless while you're striking. You need money for lawyers. You need a job for money. You need a computer for research about lawyers, and to learn about your rights, if you know that you have any; if you actually fucking have any. 

The majority of us are exhausted to the bone. And they're siphoning our marrow to hold up the illusion of a functioning society. So let me redo the groups. 

Oh, Group E is rich people. Who don't have to worry about rent, or tests running out, who can afford to keep their kids at home, who go out to restaurants because they're assholes and their tiny brains can't handle the stress of getting their food made for them at home by a chef. :( It's so hard to stay in mansions and never have to deal with the real world. :((( I have no empathy for the rich. Someone else do it. 

So Group A. Terrified for their lives, rightly so. Angry. Pick the wrong targets, as they do. Cause more mayhem than they know to handle. Should probably put the guns away and organize mass strikes. Won't. Probably being forced to be exposed to the virus regardless of whether or not they believe in it. 

Group B, feeling angry and confused and overwhelmed. Gearing up to deal with this forever as they hear about everyone around them slowly getting sick or dying or both. A lot are fighting heavy battles with themselves, a lot are losing. Some aren't, and feel guilty about it. For finding small pockets of light in their seclusion, finding themselves. They shouldn't be. It's all lead up to this moment. Lots of housebound disabled people going HA!!!!!! As they should. Nobody really listened when they talked about isolation before now. They had to find their sanity all on their own. They are wise sages and they are Equipped. 

Group C knows this is bad. They can't be in denial forever. But the alternatives are worse. To face a truth this merciless is a difficult thing to do and they have to keep their sanity, too. They don't watch the news anymore, they don't Talk About It, and I understand. They are putting other people at risk but at this point, everyone is at risk regardless of personal actions. This group I'm having difficulty with. If you know that your choices might cost someone their life.....???? Why not do everything you can to minimize that risk? Empathy is hard. 

Group D I think I've covered. 

Group E are still assholes. 

These are just my guesstimations, I haven't read articles or talked to people about where they're at or anything. 

I have the number of a personal injury lawyer. I don't know if this counts as a personal injury. I don't know if they charge for consults. I don't know what to say to my kids. Especially the ones at risk. I don't know where I'll get the energy to drag myself out of bed five days a week.


	36. Chapter 36

**October 5, 2020**

**6:12 PM**

Jesus fucking christ. These kids have to take their masks off for lunch. They just wanted to see their friends but they don't even get that of they're on separate schedules. And they still have homework to do. 

I had to look a first grader in the eye and know that there was nothing I could do to protect her from this. 

They don't even know. How cruel what they're being put through is. Why they have to wear masks. They just have a heavy sense that something is terribly terribly wrong and they just want it over with. 

It hurts to look at these very small, helpless human beings and know I can't help. It hurts so much more than I thought it was going to. 

I'm going to try my best to memorize all their names. It'll be harder to identify them from each other with the masks on but I have to. I have to call them by their own names and remind them that they exist. They're real. They're here, their presence is known, and someone is very happy to see them every day. I'm going to be the cheeriest I've ever been, even on my worst days. 

I now have a list of coworkers that I know I don't trust. Every fucking asshole without a mask on is dead to me. There are people right now enduring the absolute agony that is chemotherapy hoping that they will live. I fucking bet they wish it was as easy as wearing a mask. 

I'm going to get the flu shot tomorrow. I've already taken my sleeping pills. The more I take, the more I need to get me to bed as the week goes on, but what can I do. I can't function if I don't sleep and I don't naturally go to bed at night. 

My tattoo artist never got back to me after I bit the bullet and finally contacted them. This is probably for the better. I had to scour the oozing muck that is facebook just to find them and then I saw that they're a very funny person. On top of being sweet. They removed a tattoo because someone told them about cultural appropriation. They couldn't remember the phrase and I didn't care about the words. It's not about the words. They thought they were hurting people and they refused to hurt them any further. 

They noticed how close I am with my best friend, too. Spoke about it like they thought we were special. 

They like Star Trek, which might have explained my first tattoo to them better than I could. I've never seen it but I'd watch it with them. No matter how long it is. Even if I got bored, even if I hate being bored. 

Their arms look strong, but I think they'd be gentle with me. I want to ask them to please wrap those arms around me. To hold me upright if I can't keep standing. To let me close my eyes for a while. 

My heart is broken. It's broken it's broken it's broken. It hurts so much it makes me cry. Every time I find a piece of it and put it back, it breaks all over again. The house I'm in is being demolished and like a ghost, I can't really leave. 

Be delicate with my hair, I'd say, it needs softer hands in it. Yours are softer than mine, unravel the curls and watch them misbehave. Watch me misbehave. Watch me kiss every tattoo on your pretty face. Watch me watch me watch me. 

Thanks for letting me touch your scar. I have a few of my own and I wouldn't mind if you touched mine too. 

We've only met twice, I don't know why I'm being like this. I suppose you do work with tattoos. Leaving marks in people's skin is what you were born to do, you're not scared of it like me.

I hope they never respond. I can't know what I'll say if they ask me how I've been lately.


	37. Chapter 37

**October 6, 2020**

**6:06 PM**

Exhausted. 

Day two was less hectic but more draining. Three more to go. 

I'm out of sleeping pills. Too tired to get more. We'll see how tomorrow unfolds. 

I only have seven students so I'm making progress with their names. I don't want my tiny ethnic ones to have to repeat themselves to me or anyone. I've been where they are. There really is no way to describe the feeling of choking on your own name. Or watching someone else choke on it. Or watching them try not to but choking anyway. 

I'm going to rehearse the names and stumble in private and when they hear me say their names, first it's going to sound correct and more importantly, it's going to sound like a song. 

I picked Zia for myself. It's a traditionally masculine name, it means light, and I picked it because I liked it, not so that someone else would like it. As a kid, I used to read The Princess Diaries (full circle, full circle) and Amelia went by Mia and the fact that you could do that blew my mind. So I did it. It's weird how well it fits, despite being a childish impulse. I like that the first letter is the last of the alphabet, and the last letter is the first of the alphabet and right in the middle is i. Me. It's such a simple, straightforward description of who I am. I'm glad I picked it. 

It's fall outside. The leaves are changing without me, once again. If I wasn't so tired (or anxious), I'd go to a public park and lay on the ground for a while. Maybe even read one of my books until I lose sunlight. I've cleared stage one of buying new books: smelling them. Unsure when I'll get the energy to do the rest.

I couldn't drag myself out of bed early enough to get my flu shot. Will try again, but not tomorrow. I'm too tired for it to happen tomorrow. 

PS: I can't tell if it's morbid to read a book beside trees or not. I guess you will have a better answer. Those of you reading this now and in the future; I imagine it's equivalent. Though depending on when you found this, you may have drastically different perspectives. Isn't being a person the strangest thing in the world? 

I think so. For example, human hair wigs. It's uncomfortable for me not to know whose hair it is. Whose hair is it?????? Whose body made this? Why don't I know??? But if I knew, that would certainly be a worse experience. Abundantly worse. Take it back. I don't want your hair, Mary, really. Thank you though.


	38. Chapter 38

**October 7, 2020**

**6:35 PM**

A surprisingly good day. Got up early, actually ate before going to work, the hours passed and the trees were beautiful. One of my kids has asked me what I did for the day every time she's seen me this week. Every single time I made up some bullshit lie, there's no way I'm dumping my emotional burdens on a kid. She has to believe that it's possible to be okay even in the worst of times. It's possible find a place free of fear and pain, even if it's outside of herself. 

Today I didn't have to lie to her, though. That was nice. I can't do the cheery thing, I really played myself making that a goal. I'm more relaxed and quiet around others and an absolute banshee around people I know. It's a jarring dichotomy but I've been this way my whole life and I've only recently started to be okay with it. 

The kids are opening up. This is such an unnecessary burden for them, they have to haul all their books and things home with them to do remote learning for the rest of the week. If remote learning is an option, why expose them at all???? To a highly contagious, still unknown virus? With known cases of children contracting it??? 

I was subscribed to the local health department and would get emails every time someone died. It was awful knowledge to have, and after a while, they stopped counting. I decided to stop opening the emails when they started sharing the cases of children contracting the virus. I know that for every person who is getting tested, there are around five people who aren't. And that's just my personal guess, I think the actual numbers are far, far worse. They opened pools back up, and nightclubs, and _buffets_. 

I think some people want to die and this is their ticket out. I think they don't understand they could spread the virus to someone whose body can't handle it and kill them, too. I think they're done, truly. I'm not going to research the suicide rates. I'm not going to think about anything. I like being right, but not about horrible things, and that's all I've been right about this year. 

How did I get back to this? I had a good day, that's what I was talking about. I saw a license plate that said Feeesh and another that said Govnah and that made me smile. They were beside each other, too. Some feeesh, Govnah? Fresh from the oshun.

What else, what else. I'm forgetting everything that happened already. It's a perfect skill for terrible days, but I forget the good things too, sometimes. 

I remember thinking that today was an incredibly ironic day. Think of a ma named Adam living on Adam's street. That kind of day. There was a billboard asking if I was on the road to god and reading the difficult-to-see text almost made me crash my car, that was funny. There's a man named Mort running for a position on the school board and that one takes my breath away. There's a halo over it, too, and I can't tell if that means that he knows his name means death or not. Why a halo? "Sure, your kids might die right now, but at least they'll go to heaven." ????????? 

My boss isn't wearing a mask but he's telling us how to disinfect our spaces after the kids leave. We're not supposed to "soak the seats". We're low enough on staff that I think I could tell him, to his face, that I don't give a single fuck if they save money on disinfecting spray, I'm soaking everything. And that I'm not taking safety tips from a man refusing to wear a mask during a global viral outbreak, how does he not see the irony. 

I wish I remembered all the other little instances, they tickle me pink and I have to find my humor wherever I can get it. Oh, here's one! I like the blue. The blue in my hair, that fugly industrial blue. It works. It's pretty. If this was a movie, the fucking symbolism???? Mwah. 

Tomorrow, I shall be vaccinated. They're doing it for free at work and it's the last day. I have to drag my bones out of bed, miserable or no, and get it. Hoping to jam as many errands as I can into the day. I'd make a list but I am physically incapable of doing that. I get the pen, the paper, I start to write and can't think of anything whatsoever. I stare and stare as my brain cells try to sputter to life back there and when nothing continues to happen, I give up and wing it and inevitably forget something. Thus is life.


	39. Chapter 39

**October 8, 2020**

**6:58 PM**

Earlier, in the elevator. 

"How are you doing, baby?" Black woman. Soft words. 

"Honestly, I'm just tired." The truth from my lips for the first time in a while. 

"I believe you." Said without hesitation. "What do you do?"

"Bus driver."

Door opens for my floor, I don't move. 

"Oh, lord. With the city or a school bus driver?"

"School bus driver."

"Yeah, oh yeah. You're tired." 

I'm nodding. It's weird to be acknowledged this way for the first time this year. It's weird to let it happen. To let someone see how bad it all feels. But it's not wrong. It doesn't feel wrong. 

I tell her bye and settle into my home. I think I was triggered by one of my kids today. I can't talk about it, it's a little raw, but I can't let it bang around in my head. I'm drinking wine, gonna go until I can't anymore and then let sleep take me. 

I didn't sleep at all yesterday. I got my errands done and I'm vaccinated, and then I got home and started passing out before it was time to go in to work. I realized that I was passing out as it was happening, set alarms, and then actually felt rested for a moment. A nap hasn't done that to me in nearly recent memory. 

Today was hard, I'm forgetting why. I got Ethiopian food again. I may have already said this, but it makes me forget that I don't have rights. It's a splurge I can't really afford, but today was hard and I'm gonna be paid in dust for my efforts a few weeks from now anyway. 

I'm tired of seeing gorgeous people walk into that restaurant, masked, wait patiently for their food and then leave. How dare you have immaculate taste. Are those ghosts on that skirt? Is your hair blue, too? Your shoulders are slumped like mine, are you tired? Probably, yeah, probably. 

It's okay if you're looking at me, I'm looking at you, too.


	40. Chapter 40

**October 9, 2020**

**12: 05 PM**

I feel myself changing. 

And today, I feel strong enough to handle rejection. I'm gonna call my tattoo artist and let them tell me for themself if I'm making them uncomfortable with my persistence. 

I'm gonna listen for discomfort in their voice and if I've caused it, it will hurt to feel that way, but I will stop. 

I will find someone else. 

Life will move on and it will be because I moved it along. 

On purpose.

 **12:45 PM**

It's done, I'm seeing them next week. The scheduling process was a nightmare. The person that answered the phone was a girl again, and she had to go back and forth between me and them as they did a tattoo, aGAIN LIKE LAST TIME, and tell me which days they work (I forgot which days) and the phone kept cutting off, and I was explaining that I was previously self quarantining but now I'm back at work so do they want me to get tested and only come if I'm negative - only for the person not to understand what I was even talking about. 

I felt like I was being dramatic for trying to do this as responsibly as possible, but then the feeling passed. Feeling dramatic does not make me dramatic. My feelings cannot take away my reason or my agency. 

I've also decided that I'm not a stalker for calling a tattoo artist that I trust twice, after messaging them once, to ask for a tattoo. My attraction to a person does not automatically harm them. It is not evil on its own. It is actions that harm, and I have control of my actions. I choose not to harm. The people that did not choose were at fault. It was not my body or their attraction to it that brought the harm. It was their choice to harm me. 

That thought took me in an unexpected direction. I think I have to think seriously about what attraction means to me. But not today. 

I think the girl that answered the phone is an artist, too. I don't like that she answers their phone for them and schedules appointments that aren't hers. It's possible she was just helping a busy friend out and they do the same for her, too. 

My hangover is bearable. I mean I feel like shit but I've gone to work feeling all kinds of ways and it didn't matter. I'll just have to be extra careful as I drive. I didn't start drinking early enough, how irresponsible of me. 

You have to appreciate the irony with me. I think it's absolutely delicious, almost funny enough to make me laugh.


	41. Chapter 41

**October 10, 2020**

**9:51 AM**

Woke up because I felt a dust particle land in my airway and that's....different. I woke up thinking I was dying. My body hurts everywhere, my chest feels tight, my throat hurts and breathing feels like a chore. 

Now that I'm conscious, I'm able to think through this. I got my flu shot, and Tis The Season for respiratory ailments. My body hurts because I'm back at work, driving a twenty tonne vehicle. I was wearing a bra for the first time all year basically, and bras have always hurt. And my back also always hurts.

My throat hurts but it isn't swollen, so it's not strep. Swallowing does not hurt. The tightness in my chest is from the panic, I think I had a panic attack in my sleep. Panic attacks, I can handle. 

They've been more frequent these past few weeks than they have my entire life. I talk myself through them by reminding my brain that it is okay. I am okay. I think I can't breathe, but I'm breathing. I think my chest hurts from a virus but it hurts because I'm scared and it's normal to be scared. My body knows how to keep me alive. It works really hard. It does a good job. I should be nicer to it. I want to be nicer to it. One day, I'm going to be nicer to it without even thinking about it. 

I might be hungry but I can't tell. I can't stomach food lately but I still make sure to eat it. 

I still feel that deep sense of calm from yesterday. I never know when feelings like this will go away so I'm soaking it up. I feel like I understand everything in the universe. Every time I meet someone now, I feel like I understand something small, and meaningful, and true about them. They're alive. Just like me. They're in this world, just like me. I can't stop thinking about it. How real we all are. 

When I meet someone whose favorite color is green, I feel like I understand them. They see what I see and they can't help but think it's beautiful. They just can't help it.

I've never understood why people argue about which music is the best. Truly never. We're different and it's beautiful. I'm alive and the sounds I love the most are perfect for me. You're alive and your favorite sounds are perfect for you. It's wonderful that we're different. It's important because it's real. There aren't just two types of trees, two types of leaves, two types of heights, two types of planets, two types of animals, not even two types of cats. We're supposed to be different, because we're alive. We're in this world, we're different, and that's exactly how it's supposed to be. 

There's a memory from yesterday I want to leave here. First of all, I really played myself trying to remember forty names in one week. Me who can't even remember yesterday except for what I'm trying to share now. It upset me to fail, but it is not me who has failed. I am not a failure. 

So the best I could manage for day two of the new group of kids was looking each of them in the face and saying hi. I must have said hi thirty times, but there were thirty of them, they're all alive, and I want them to know that I know that. That's my first school of kids. 

They're all loud and perceptive and they made me hyperventilate on Thursday because I got a little lost and they immediately picked up on it and fully roasted me. They told me when they thought I missed their stops, and they said I couldn't drive, and they made fun of other things I can't remember. And the whole time I was getting my feelings hurt, I was smiling. 

I adore that about them. The way they tell the adults in their lives they think we're idiots. Because they're right, we are. All of us. We ruin the world they have to share with us and they have the right to feel every kind of way about that. Asshole roommates who could kill them at any moment, that's what we are. 

I was also smiling because even though I was being read up and down and dragged to filth, I was okay. When they called me stupid, it hurt, but I know that I'm not stupid. When they said that I couldn't drive, it stung because I really am terrible with directions, but I know that I'm a phenomenal driver. 

How wonderful, to be an adult. To have power over myself. To have power over children and use it not to hurt them. To let them talk back and say what they mean and hurt my feelings and still not hurt them. 

The ones that hurt me weren't powerful at all, were they? How pathetic do you have to be to make someone who is already smaller than you feel smaller? How absolutely fucking pathetic to hurt someone who has no hope of hurting you back the same? Oh, they couldn't handle me now. They'd hate me now. They'd know that there's nothing they could do to hurt me and like the abject cowards they are, they'd steer clear. That's so satisfying to know.

A few of the kids said that they liked my hair. It is deeply important to me that these kids, who look exactly like me, understand that if they want their hair to be blue, it can be blue. Nothing bad is going to happen. I promise. 

My second school, I only pick three kids up. It's quieter so they talk more. One is a big reader, wants to be a scientist or a doctor, and I got to tell her that she would be an excellent one. People would be relieved, they'd say oh, that one? She knows everything, she's read so many books. And I meant it. With my whole heart, I meant it. 

One doesn't talk and goes by a different name. I don't question why she doesn't use the Chinese one. I think we all know why. I call her by the name she prefers and hope she feels safe on the bus with me, even if it's for a moment of her life. 

The last one is fierce. Has seen far, far too much. There's a war raging in the part of the world where he is from. His ethnic group is persecuted and he probably grew up in a refugee camp. Most people don't know what a refugee is, but I do. I grew up in one, too. 

He said his favorite car is a S.W.A.T car. I asked him why. He said because they are bulletproof. After dropping him off on Thursday, I went home and drank until I fell asleep. 

Yesterday, he was talking about being bullied. He beats their fucking ass and I wanted to tell him never to stop, but I didn't want to interrupt his conversation with his friends. 

I couldn't remember his name and it made me angry. I only have three. I remembered the other two. Unfair unfair unfair. 

So I accidentally made a big deal about it. I haven't had a chance to read it, so it's not in my head yet, and I made him repeat it, I couldn't hear, yknow the bus and the masks and I'm brain dead and it was terrible of me, even though I meant well. I made his life just a little bit harder than it needed to be because I was trying to make it easier. Isn't that something?

But at a stop sign, I picked up the sheet of names and stops, found his name and repeated it in my head over and over. And then when it was his turn to go, I told him if I get his name wrong he should be angry and correct me and not be sorry about correcting me. After I finished my little speech, though, he said, in that simple little straightforward way of his, "You said it right." 

My reaction was decidedly feral. I tried to explain why, but I don't know if he cares. I'm sure he has better things to do than entertain his weirdo bus driver. But it made me so happy. 

He'd looked up without thinking when I said it. I figured it was because I am the authority figure, and kids are brainwashed into thinking they have to give adults dominion over them at all times, but I don't think that was it. First, I don't think this kid accepts dominion over him from anybody and I hope this thread remains constant throughout his life. And second, he recognized himself. 

I think I got the cadence right and everything. Emphasis on the correct syllables, the right notes on a piano. If someone played my name on an instrument, I think I'd recognize it. I think that's what happened with him, and if that's the case, it makes me very, very, happy. It's a memory I want to remain in this world, even if I forget it. So it's here. 

I can't believe I did it. I've been so overwhelmed all week. So sad for these kids. But for today, and for yesterday, I feel good. I don't care if these kids remember me, I just want them to know they're alive. They're here. That's step one. Saying hi is step one. 

If you're under eighteen and you happen to be reading this, please don't tell me. Don't tell any stranger you don't know that you are a child. There are vile, evil people who would hurt you because you're smaller than them. I would kill them for you if I could, but I can't. 

You don't have to be invisible. Read what you want, read these if you want, watch what you want. Find your name in music and understand that you are here. You are alive. Being alive is hard, people twice and three times your age don't know what the fuck we're doing. We have more money than you, more experience than you, more more more, and still, we are lost and afraid. If we can't figure it out, you don't have to. I promise. 

Just breathe. You are alive. It's enough.


	42. Chapter 42

**October 11, 2020**

**12:11 PM**

I invited my friends over to my apartment yesterday. It was nerve wracking because I was scared they'd cancel. And my apartment wasn't clean. And I wasn't sure I had enough water. But they needed a drink and I'm right here. So I said to come over. 

One cancelled and I was sad but I didn't die. I'm going to invite her over again, and I'm going to try and be a better friend to her. I did good with the one that's here. There's my best friend and there's her and I'm not as close with her but I want to be. I think I did good yesterday. 

She hadn't eaten all day so I cooked for her. Even though my back was killing me and I was tired and there was food already. I knew she wouldn't like it so I made her something else. 

I didn't thaw the ground chicken early enough so I had to run it under hot tap water, getting salmonella sauce everywhere probably, but it didn't work all the way, so I had to mash it with my bare hands like a cave animal. I was wearing gloves but imagine if I didn't have them. Imagine the horror. 

And then I didn't taste the pasta as I was making it, and I didn't have onions (side note, I'm terrified to open my vegetable drawer and bare witness to the carnage) and I couldn't remember what order I make the food in and everything was too loud and my back was killing me and the cumin was getting in my nose and it was hot and my friends were talking and sometimes I'd be responding and someone was playing tiktok videos (I don't have tiktok) and then......the food turned out perfect. 

I hadn't made it in a while and I'm unreasonably proud of my ability to make pasta exactly right and I did it. They loved it. It was a feeling I cherished, one I'm afraid of. To show people how much of them I see, how much I remember. But my new friend saw and nothing bad happened. I'm still embarrassed, but I'm strong. I'm okay. I can handle this love I have inside. 

We laughed so much. About the stupidest shit you can imagine. We didn't even drink that much, just pleasantly buzzed. I didn't even care to. Alcohol helps with the anxiety when I'm around people, but I didn't need it. I'm changing and I'm so strong. 

My throat hurts from how much we laughed. We didn't talk about why we're sad. Why we need to drink. It would come up though, just the absolute horrors of being at work right now. None of us can be safe. We're all either working or directly exposed to people who have to be working. We are all being abused. No matter how many times we wash our hands, no matter how hard we wear our masks. Any one of us could die at any time and I want to be a better friend while I still can. 

It was so nice. To know about the pain and chaos of the world and find none of it in my home. To know that with me, for one night, the people I love were perfectly safe. And that I made it so. I'm so strong. 

We've just been laying here, talking if we want, not talking if we don't want. It's nice not to pretend. It's nice that my counter is a mess and I don't feel like they'd like me less for it. It's nice that we're just on the floor, surrounded by my followers. It's nice. So nice to be a friend. She keeps showing me videos I don't care about. The other one is laying on the ground opposite me and her toes are horrifically near my eyes. She could kill me with one wayward stretch of her body. It's nice to be a friend. 

I'm going to a park to make another one. We haven't seen each other in years but I think he's a good person. I want to be a better friend to him, too.


	43. Chapter 43

**October 11, 2020**

**7:01 PM**

I was right. He's exactly like I remember. Still hopeful and kind. Someone loves him very, very much so he's going to be just fine if this all falls apart. 

I'm excited to get to know him again. Friendship is the most important thing in the world to me. It always has been. I could never abide any story where two friends stop being friends. And if two friends become friends over the course of time? I'm there. I'm watching it. I'm reading it. 

I think family members can be best friends first and foremost, if they are on equal ground and one doesn't hold power over the other. An adult child and their parent. Cousins. Etc. Same with coworkers. Same with anyone. But mind the power imbalance. 

This person was my professor. The part of my mind that knows how to protect me understood that at the time, we were not on equal footing. And when I graduated, I decided I'd never see him again. 

But I'm powerful now, vibrating with it. I knew it was time. He's not allowed to be my professor, I don't want his answers. I think he's a good person and as the world falls apart, I'd like to sit in a park and think about goodness for awhile. He's the only person I know mushy enough to do that with me and I was right. That's exactly what we did. 

When we crossed a line, I told him. When I crossed a line, he told me. Because the first thing friends do is respect each other. I can't wait to know all the ways I can do that for him. I'm strong enough right now to ask for the same care and respect back, without flinching. I hope this sense of peace doesn't leave me. This sense of being here, of being me, without caveat.

It hurts a lot to be seen. For an invisible, unloved creature like me, it's a shock to the system. But I don't have the right anymore to look at others and turn them over and run a magnifying glass over their wounds and understand exactly what made them. I must allow people to see me, too. 

It's hard work trying to be a good friend. For some reason, just for today, I wasn't afraid of fucking the whole thing to shit. And everything turned out okay in the end, absolutely everything. 

What if I feel this way because of the lady in the elevator? Who looked at me and knew without words that I was tired? What if that was enough to remind me that I am a human being and not only am I not responsible for the abject suffering of the world, but that I don't deserve any of it either? Wouldn't that be simple? So appallingly simple. Call up the medical journals and tell them how fragile I am. 

(Just kidding, they'd commit unspeakable violence against me and then ask the same question at the end as they did at the beginning. "Why are you like this?" And they wouldn't understand the irony, and because they didn't understand the irony, they would do me more violence until everything I am disappeared as intended. And only then would they feel satisfied. Like they completed their job.) 

If all I can ever be is your random lady in the elevator, please understand how much of an honor that is to me.

I can't believe I have work tomorrow. For fuck's sake. Mondays were bad enough.


	44. Chapter 44

**October 12, 2020**

**12:14 PM**

Woke up thinking I was dying again. Panic attacks hit different when my mind isn't fully conscious and I'm choking and I can't breathe and I can't remind myself that I'm okay. 

Gotta remind my friends to get tested. One of us may have it or none of us may have it and I don't know how worth it it'll be if we're all just going back to work anyway. But maybe it'll help my brain understand that everything is truly fine if I get a negative result. 

They literally just texted me about health care one second ago. If I enroll, my already skinny paycheck is gonna be skinnier. Isn't that funny? Isn't that the funniest thing in the world? You may not be able to afford food, or your rent, or gas money for your car, or even change for the bus, but hey, if not eating and not sleeping and having no home Somehow makes you sick then at least you can go to the doctor and they can tell you, for a year's worth of wages, why you are sick. 

This place is a disgrace to humanity.


	45. Chapter 45

**October 14, 2020**

**12:35 PM**

Guess who completely didn't write down the appointment date and then made me wait - even though I arrived exactly on time - okay, one minute early - while they worked on someone else's tattoo? And then popped back out to do the touch up (I'm getting the new one at a different time) in another room and was completely standoffish with me the entire time? Guess who. Guess. 

ALSO they weren't wearing their mask right and I truly had to be like hey......why isn't your mask over your nose too? And they were like cuz I got the rona. And I was like you can get it twice. And they were like I'm fucking with you. And that's when I realized they might not be taking this seriously and the light of my crush for them dimmed. 

And to make things worse, I fucking hate being condescended to. I know I look like a middle schooler and my little polka dot dress isn't helping but I have a fucking degree in public health, I know what I'm talking about. Not that they know that. But fuck. 

So I have to ruin their life is what I'm saying. I'm gonna tell them to get their flu shot and wear their mask properly and if the new white ink on this tattoo fucks everything up I'm gonna tell them they don't get to call themself an artist and not understand how the color brown works on the visible light spectrum. You're either an artist and you understand color or you're an amateur and all you know to work with is light skin. 

Which is fair. You can specialize in lighter skin. But don't try and pretend like you are a fully developed artist. I have half a mind to teach myself to draw and then learn about color just so black and brown people don't feel like they'll never have vibrant, colorful tattoos. We can. We're just going to ear, nose and throat specialists when we should be going to a cardiologist. 

This is what I get for developing a crush on a white person, honestly. 

Anyway. They're pretty. I think they uncover their face so people will look at them and they'll feel pretty. I think they're pretty but it doesn't have to do with the face. The face is just extra. A cherry on top. 

They're also closer to my height, which i like. None of this tiptoe shit, I'm not a gymnast. Why must i launch off a trampoline to reach your face? Huh? In the event that we would kiss, which fully depends on whether you're a decent person or not? Huh????? 

If I'm wrong about them, it's okay. If they don't like me at all, that's okay. If they misunderstand me, that's okay. If this tattoo heals weird, that's okay. I'm okay. Really. Truly.


	46. Chapter 46

**October 17, 2020**

**3:09 PM**

October seventeenth?!?!? .......Okay. I guess. If you say so. 

I've just had a realization. That I'm grieving for the world because I love it. 

It's obvious in retrospect, that grief is pain that humans feel inside because we can't love someone or something as much as we want to. It's so fucking stupid, how full of love we are. Absolutely fucking embarrassing. And yet, we can't help ourselves can we? Can we?

The traffic lights, the street signs. Don't kill each other. Let's all get home in one piece. Because we're alive and we deserve to be. No one has the right to interfere with that fact. We have to share the world or we all die. And even if someone disagrees, it doesn't matter. Most of us agree. Most of us don't get in our cars and run head first into another person. Most of us stop at red lights because we're alive and we know that we deserve to be alive.

High visibility vests. Hey, I'm here, I'm alive, don't hurt me. Know that my fragile body can't take that kind of damage and you're not allowed to damage it. And if you do inflict violence, everyone who hears about it will know you were in the wrong. No one is going to say it was your right to kill me. Ninety percent of people will defend my right to stay alive. Because we're people and we can't help caring about each other. 

We're so helpless when we're born. Can't stay alive worth shit. We can't walk, don't have teeth, soft squishy skin, bones not even fused together. Immediately start screaming so that a predator can find and kill us. But they don't. Because another human being makes us alive. Makes sure we eat. Makes sure our hearts don't stop. Keeps our stupidly squishy body alive. And sometimes that human being is called mama. And sometimes they're not. 

No wonder societies collapse time and time again. We keep telling the same lie. That we're worthless, that our only purpose in life is to be used and hurt and drained. And each time the lie unfolds. Each time, we love each other. We make sure buildings don't collapse on one another. We make sure clothes keep us warm, shoes protect one another's feet from thorns. 

We fall in love with one another. We listen to the music we make for each other. We speak words that make sense to one another. And if they stop making sense, we create new words, we speak to each other in different ways. We say hey, try this food I promise you're gonna love it. Watch this movie, watch these people tell you this story. You'll care, you'll remember it. Might even save your life. 

And we pretend it's capitalism that's real. We pretend that it's racism that's real. We pretend it's normal to hate each other, and then fall in love with each other in secret. I want everyone that pretends that people are inherently evil and that all we do is hurt each other to throw away their favorite albums. Let every building collapse on their friends. Put their dog back in the pound. See how hard they buck. How angry they'll become. How easily they will say no. This is beautiful and it is my duty to behold it. Most of us are like that, I think. Otherwise there wouldn't be a world left to speak of.

We pretend that life is about cars, but I have to disagree. Life is about seatbelts. Life is about caution signs. Life is about chairs and tables, and how we all understand that eventually, we must sit. We must rest. We sleep because we are human and all we are is fragile. Here's a street lamp. You idiot. I'll be back every once in a while to make sure it still works because your stupid little eyes need light to see at night. You absolute buffoon. 

I think I finally understand why people get so attached to their stuff. I never got it, I'll throw anything away. But some people have been convinced no one loves them. And they know it's a lie, but they can't say why. So they keep buttons. Glass soda bottles. Clothes. Look at this thing another human being made. It fits me perfectly. I can't stop staring at that color. It's a usb cord, it helps me use my phone. A person I love wore that, he's called my dad. His time in this world is limited but I'm going to remember him forever. No one can stop me.

So I live in a world that loves me. That's the big secret. That's what being a human being is. Plastic bags have handles so my stupid little hands can carry more shit than they'd be able to on their own. I speak english because other people who also speak english had to make their thoughts known to me. The traumatized little kids I work with get a thoughtful look in their eyes, tilt their head and tell me they like me. And I have no choice but to believe them. 

I think I was wrong before, about myself. I don't think I'm a black hole anymore. I think I'm full of love, absolutely bursting with it. That's why it's been so painful to say goodbye to this world. I think it's a beautiful place more often than not. One of kiddos found a leaf on the ground and she kept it all day just to show me. It was blushed red to the stem and I thought it was beautiful. She told me she thought it was beautiful, too. I think that's why she showed me. She knew I'd understand. 

The hits and kudos and comments on this are from people who love me. Because....I'm a human being. And human beings love each other. It's that easy. I'm sorry that I didn't realize. That must have been so frustrating. I get it now. Thank you. I love you, too. 

I've been so strangely at peace for how chaotic the world is. It's all still terrible, all still awful. But I think we'll be okay. If we start over with fresh lies, I know that we won't be able to help ourselves. We'll love each other. We'll keep each other alive, no matter who says not to. 

Being human is to love. The rest is just boundaries.


	47. Chapter 47

**October 18, 2020**

**4:29 PM**

In the past two weeks, I've invited friends over and got to know one better, contacted an old friend and had a truly cherished conversation with him, got to know a few of the tiny humans on my bus, called my long distance friend and spoke to her for an hour and called my little brother, updated him on my life, and talked to him about his day. 

It doesn't hurt anymore. Any of this. I don't know why, but I hope it lasts. 

I'm seventy seven pages into the book I started yesterday. Looks like I still know how to read. Please clap. 

I've been consistently disinfecting my tattoo. I'm never gentler with my skin than when there's a fresh tattoo underneath. I find meaning in every iteration of that. 

Paid my electricity bill. Internet is next. Got my ballot finally. (One of the guys running for office lives in this rinky dink building?????? Very bizarre. I met him on Friday. Not wearing a mask. Immediate distrust. What a simple litmus test this pandemic has become.)

Dishes are piling up, as always. I'll get to them when I do. 

These logs are getting long. I've been around for a while I guess. Please know that if you find this in the far distant future and you package my words into a memoir or some shit, I will haunt you from beyond the grave. I absolutely do not consent. If you find meaning in these words and you want to share them, you will do so for free. The people who might most need to hear this don't always have a spare ten dollars laying around. Or whatever future money you use. Ten chickens.

The sun looks dimmer these days. I can stare directly at it while it sets, it doesn't blind me at all. The moon, on the other hand, is doing whatever the fuck it pleases, at all times, as always.


	49. Chapter 49

**October 20, 2020**

**1:39 AM**

Meant to jot this down yesterday before I forgot. Hope i don't miss anything. 

I had eleven kids, remembered all of their names except for one. One of the tiny refugees asked, "Why do you know my name?" and it's far too embarrassing to admit I work really hard to remember names because it's important to me that they all know that they are seen and remembered. So I said nothing. 

He's got a highly curious mind, that one. Asked me all sorts of questions. If I ever got in fights at school (yes, with boys. I never started them but I always finished them. ((I've never lost a fist fight for how many I've been in, I'm really proud of it.)) he said boys shouldn't hit girls and I just had to shrug). He asked if I went to college (yes, hated it) and what I wanted to be when I grew up (nothing. never thought of it).

He asked where I was from and guessed accurately tiny genius!!! He put dozens of adults I know to shame. I explained how my mom escaped a civil war and he asked me what a civil war was. I told him. It's not exactly like what's probably happened to him but it's close enough. He said he thought I was black and I said yes, I am black, I'm from Africa where they make black people. So curious. 

His friend on the other hand, walks like he saved the world and for all anyone knows, he probably has. 

There's an exceedingly friendly black boy who had a good day yesterday. He told me as soon as he got on and I couldn't help saying how happy I was for him. Something something student of the week. He always makes sure to look me in the eye, wave, and say "Hey, miss," in his chipper little voice. I have no idea where he gets the energy but I'm happy he has it. 

And don't even get me started on the elementary school kids. They talk my ear all the way off. They're also not from this country, so we have a lot to talk about. I think they feel less like an alien when they talk to me about all the new experiences they have here and it means a lot. I never talked to anyone about anything and I always felt like an outsider. Never knew how to explain to the adults in my life the life I'd lived before and besides, they already looked at me with pity in their eyes. Nothing I hate more than pity.

They mean a lot to me, these kids. I know that they're hungry. I know school is taxing and hard and in a lot of ways, inhumane. I know that the world does not treat children like people. I know that I carry child soldiers in my bus. Survivors of rape. Physical abuse. Mental and verbal abuse. I know some of them get called stupid so much that they believe it. I know some of them get bullied by adults. I know some of them hate going home and for good reason. 

It all breaks my heart but I don't pity them. I know they are strong. Stronger than even they know. I know that I will fade from their memories, they'll think back to their time on my bus and go "Did she.....did she have blue hair? Or was I imagining it?" And I'll know the truth. 

It was enough for me, to be able to bring them fifteen minutes of peace. The ones that don't have a second to themselves, the oldest siblings, the ones who are so quiet that people forget they're there. I don't forget, I never do. It was enough for me to take their precious selves home in one piece and not bother them while they catch their breath. But they always surprise me. People always surprise me. 

Remember these kids for me after I'm gone. Remember their stories, remember that they are in this world, they are alive, and they make it a better place. That they never deserved any of this. Remember them.


	50. Chapter 50

**October 20, 2020**

**1:46 PM**

Well well well. You'll never guess who was apparently scammed by their internet provider and now has a bill five times what they paid last month to cough up in ten days. 

It's the way I truly fell for their bullshit, for me. The way my alarm bells should have been ringing but they weren't because I was exhausted to my soul and too busy crying to back the call up. It's the way I thought everything was going to be okay in this one corner of the world and it wasn't. It's the way I sighed in genuine relief like a complete fucking idiot. 

I lost my temper with the poor rep. Started cussing and raising my voice and everything. They were acting like I made up the entire phone call last month, like everything Daniel - was his name Daniel? Motherfucker. Euphoria is right - said directly to my face, he didn't say. And they ~somehow~ found a discount to give me for my new bill and despite knowing how unfair and wrong it was, giving in because I had no other choice. I never fucking lose it with service people and I'm angry with myself. I feel like this entire situation has stolen a piece of me that I'm proud of. I apologized at the end, but it didn't matter. I ruined that lady's day and she has to put up with other assholes like me for the rest of it.

I called another internet provider and it turns out the one I'm with? The only ones that provide service to """"my area"""". Which sounds ugly and illegal and I want to fight this, I want my dignity back, but I know that no fucking lawyer will care. And after the first round of douchebags refused to even think about suing the city for basically sending me to my slaughter, I don't think I can handle another slap in the face over something less significant than that.

At this very second, I'm angry enough to just do it myself. But I know that won't last. The anger. It's going to bleed back into the melancholic apathy that helps me get up each day. 

It's the little ways this country chips at your personhood. A hundred little interactions like this that show you, in plain terms, that you are nothing but an animal to be abused. It doesn't matter if you know it's unfair. It doesn't matter if the whole world knows it's unfair. Your reality is going to remain unchanged. Scream and cry, see if it helps. See how far that gets you. The same place you were five seconds ago? Who would've guessed.

Off to work, where I have no rights, to pick up kids, who also have no rights. I haven't had a shit day in a while, but I think they'll cheer me up regardless. They're alive, they're full of stories, and I'll be happy to hear about their day.


	51. Chapter 51

**October 22, 2020**

**12:46 AM**

The light of my crush is back in full force and I would like to be exterminated, thank you. 

I showed up - on time again, repulsive - and there was a pretty girl inside as I filled out the paperwork. I didn't see her until I walked into the tattoo room but I did hear my artist ask her to get food after they left for the evening. Devastating. 

I had such an interrogation ready. This whole thing built around the importance of masks and how a tattoo artist should know the importance of PPE if they wear gloves and disinfect skin as they work. I was gonna ask them to keep my money, despite being down to $0.03 cents -

(I had $6:23 but then I bought a mango smoothie after the insistence of the girl over the drive thru intercom lead me astray by my gay little balls. I was gonna get a matcha smoothie but they were basically out and she suggested getting it blended with mango, only for the person making it to forget the matcha part. Despite my display yesterday, I can't bring myself to be rude to service people so I just let it be and paid the $6:20. I didn't think it would be over $6 though, and I didn't want to endure the humiliation of getting my card declined, but it worked out by the skin of my teeth) 

\- refuse the new tattoo, and for the duration that I'd be getting a new one, instead ask them why they won't wear a mask properly during the reign of ms. canoli banoli. I had about five theories as to why, only for me to lose courage as soon as I saw the pretty girl and understand that they're probably partners. She was super sweet, she laughed at a lot of my jokes. It's harder to make my artist laugh but I always crack the code eventually. I eventually figure out what kind of humor makes someone laugh by making them laugh at the thing. The best from them, though, was a smile. Which I'll take. 

They were so gentle with me again. Warned me right before the millisecond the needle hit my skin. Asked if I was okay as I laid there unreacting. It didn't hurt as much as I thought it was going to, for a tattoo with shading in it. The girl asked me what it meant and then began the casual banter back and forth as I explained. My artist was mostly quiet, focusing on my skin, but they were listening the whole time. It came out toward the end, when they repeated what I'd said with lazer precision. 

They held my hand - soft SKIN - as I sat back up and asked me to come back for another free touch up sooner than a fucking year. And I have no idea what that means. They said the new one will need a touch up sooner than the one on my calf, so I'll definitely have to come back sooner for it. What does it M E A N? Do they want to see me again? Me? What about their cute girlfriend or date or whatever? Am I supposed to pretend like I don't find her attractive too? Are they polyamorous? My brain is leaking out of my ears. 

This person got a new tattoo since the last time I saw them. Underneath their right eye. It's an atom. A very very tiny atom. To cover up the hole their former piercing left behind. The tattoo matches the first one they gave me, the first one I ever got, ever. So what hope in fucking hell did I have? How could I NOT develop a stupid little crush on them? Bitch an _atom_? Shut the fuck up before I kiss it right off your face. I'm sure a thousand tries would transfer it to my lips. 

Their voice calms me. I can't imagine this person yelling. It's a weird tight rope to walk, being nervous and calm around them.

**10:40 AM**

I can't tell if I want them to like me or not. I thought I was getting better at liking myself but the thought of them wanting me around makes me want to shrivel up and disappear. 

They got a soft, startled look on their face when I mentioned that I bruise easily and my monkey brain won't stop replaying it. They wanted to see how last week's touch up looked and it's scabbing and sort of bruised so I had to explain that and I just wasn't ready for the expression on their face. I don't know. It was like they'd been hit or something. 

It's the empathy, it's excruciating. They think that's bad? Genuinely? How could I ever explain to them anything else about my life? If they didn't pity me and empathized instead, I might never stop crying. And how awkward is that? To be normal and whole and have someone absolutely fall apart on you out of the blue? What if I didn't even get a chance to explain? What if they'd just think I was dramatic? Do I let them misunderstand? Do I tell them the horrible truth? How much is too much? Could I stand to be too much? No, not even a little. 

I hate the word broken. I always have. You can call me broken the day I fucking kill myself, how's that. You can say that I stopped functioning, I was broken. Until then, I don't think someone who gets shit done the way I do should have to abide that kind of misnomer. I'm not sorry for being alive despite it all. 

That being said, if I cry on someone's shoulder for nine straight hours because they were kind to me for thirty minutes, I do think they have every right to be startled by the display. And their shock would embarrass me so much it would haunt me for the rest of my life. So. I don't know what they meant by "come back" but I am absolutely not going to do that. They should date the pretty girl and forget about me. It'll take me an eternity to save up for another tattoo anyway, and by then they should have a wonderful, healthy relationship where no one cries.


	52. Chapter 52

**October 25, 2020**

**2:19 AM**

???????

???

?

?????

What am I gonna do? What am I gonna do???? Walk in there, to their _workplace_ , and ask them to come home with me? Go to the place where they work? Where they can't leave if I'm annoying? Or insane? 

What are we gonna do, _date_? I'm not going to restaurants. I'm not going anywhere. So what, we're fighting about covid? It's not a fight, there's one clear answer and nonsense. 

Okay so if they hear me out, then what? We spend hours talking again? They ask me questions and I give them answers no one else in the world has? I touch them if they let me? And vice versa????? I can't fail in love right now, come on. This is a person I could fall in love with and what an idiotic thing to do in the apocalypse!!!!!!!!!! That's my timing? This is when I get swept away by love???????? Are you kidding me?

We are less than ten days away from one of the most vital elections I'll ever be a part of (just voted, the blood is still fresh in my eyes). We have concentration camps in this country, no ifs ands or buts. There is a deadly virus raging and since the last time I checked, we have the highest cases in the world and there's nothing being done to get it even remotely under control. Etc etc etc. The list literally goes on and on. I could not have picked a worse time to get romantically attached to someone. 

But what if I die without knowing what it feels like to be in love? What if I showed up at that fucking tattoo parlor in my Inuyasha wig and said, in plain terms, if they never want to see me again, I'll respect their wishes, and not to feel bad if they don't reciprocate, and if they're okay with it, I'd still like to get my future tattoos from them because for some reason I trust them where i don't trust others and I don't mention the part where I might not be alive for reasons outside of my control, but if they showed up at my door after work because I gave them my address, I'd invite them into my bed and I'd touch them as gently as they've touched me? What if I was truly brave for once in my fucking life? 

Could I handle that this week? A rejection on top of all the things I still have to do? A rejection in the middle of my costume planning? Errand running? Lawyer calling? (I'm still pissed about that stupid fucking internet bill). Working? Election results? If this newfound strength I have crumbles, is it going to destabilize me to my core? Am I really strong or is it some sneaky bullshit my brain has been pulling to get me through the day? 

Maybe I shouldn't test my confidence like this. I don't want it to hurt again, inviting a friend over and having them cancel on me. Calling the people I love even when I don't know what to say. I don't want it all to be so difficult that I can't bear it. I just want to be human without constantly being sorry. I haven't been sorry for it lately and I like it so much. It feels good. It feels right. 

And all this because someone I like held my hand for three seconds. Hello????????? I'm not stable at all am I, I'm off the deep end and it's all gonna come to light this week or something.

**1:33 PM**

........No, right? The answer is no????? Right?? 

Maybe my wigs will protect me. A friend ordered two wigs at my request and added them to her cart a week ago and they arrived scary fast. Let's not think about delivery people and the unique version of hell they've been trapped in for the past seven months haha. I got paid on Friday, paid her back, and now I have serotonin from wigs. 

My actual hair is wild on its own, it's always some color or another, got several different lengths going on (because of my growing out the previously shaved sides and a separate, tragic trimming incident ((the tragedy is that I can't trim)) and the curls will do whatever the fuck they want, as they should. There isn't a wig that will really excite me like my own hair does, so I got normal hairstyles. 

One is a blond bob I plan on milking the fuck out of vis-a-vis costumes. I'm thinking Howl, Taylor Swift, maybe Mello from Death Note. I forget any other ideas I may have had. The long black wig I'm gonna do Inuyasha, I'm gonna try and make his red outfit from scratch and give myself a migraine when I inevitably fail. And Ichigo's final getsuga form. 

My friend got long wigs too, and for some reason, every single long wig I put on makes me look like a guitarist in a hair metal band. Every single one. It's been delightful. I thought I'd look more feminine but instead I'm doing Steven Tyler's back vocals four months into a world tour and tensions are high because the other guitarist showed up an hour late to rehearsals. 

On actual Halloween, I'm going to be Medusa again. Last year, I was the angry version of her, black lipstick and scales (that made me look like a voodoo queen instead. it's fine. I didn't sleep in pipe cleaners for the look or anything 

((only to somehow still get racist comments???? The braids I made stood twelve inches off my head because of the pipe cleaners but the wh*tes were still like "I didn't know if it did that on its own" ma'am. The laws of physics apply to black hair, too. A balloon floats when you put air in it. A braid requires several strands of hair to create it. At a certain length, a braid will no longer be standing because it now weighs too much. Nobody is walking around with twelve inch braids sticking straight off their head. Because we all live on earth. And gravity is real. (((Allegedly))). 

Although, in her defense, some black people have very very light hair and it will stand straight up no matter how many strands of hair are involved in the process if enough water weight is removed. A hair strand is a truly unique, fascinating substance in the universe and imagine how many scientific discoveries we could have made around it if white scientists weren't racists and black people were allowed to exist unbothered. 

Anyway. My braids were snakes and they were floating because I was literally Medusa. There are no remaining holes in my head from being stabbed all night with pipe cleaners. Thank you.)) 

This year, I got all white contacts. I've got all kinds of pink flowers to adorn all over my body. Medusa has healed from her pain, she's feeling soft, she blushes now. I was gonna do the look last year (all week I tried to do costumes. I was a witch, No Face, a pirate ((a weirdly hot pirate.....it's the Somali in me)), Medusa and I was gonna be Medusa Healed but it was all very last minute and by the end I was absolutely wiped out. I've only done Halloween a handful of times in my life and I didn't even mean to go that hard but it was a lot of fun despite the exhaustion. 

I didn't think I cared about Halloween this year because 2020 has sucked the absolute life out of me but I knew I was still going to do Medusa. I need to carry her story arch to its end for insanely personal reasons, but then these impulse wigs arrived and now I'm excited for some last minute shenanigans. It's gonna wipe me out to try and pull these costumes off but I'll be damned if I don't try. 

Wait, why am I talking about Halloween? Ohhhhh courage. I don't know, if I do end up barging in on my tattoo artist and ruining both our days, maybe I'll go as Ichigo. His costume is gonna be sexy as hell and maybe I'll still feel sexy if I get rejected. Final Getsuga Tensho indeed. 

Or maybe it's human Inuyasha I go as. The symbolism alone???? I'd go as Medusa but once I put those contacts in, it's over for me Mr Krabs. Can't see shit. My hearing is already questionable and I'm cold all the time. I'll just be a snake with arms. Imagine me hobbling back to my friend's car blind, embarrassed, and rejected. A disgrace to people with actual disabilities. A disgrace to snakes. 

No. I won't. I refuse.


	53. Chapter 53

**October 27, 2020**

**4:37 AM**

On the verge of a panic attack. I can feel my heart rate kicking up, out of the blue. Getting hard to take deep breaths. Hands shaking, can barely type this. Annoying. All of it. 

I can hear my neighbor's laundry machine. Never been able to hear it before. I wonder if that means their laundry room is what's attached to my wall. It would certainly make me feel better about blasting music if I'm more sure they can't hear it.

I woke up at 1am. Been waiting to go back to sleep but it's not happening. I took those five sleeping pills for nothing and it's only Tuesday. The highest I ever go up to is six. If the six don't work, then I guess I'm just not sleeping. 

I'm hoping that being up this early means I'll fall asleep naturally by the time night comes. Can't always be sure, though. 

Oh, I've forgotten to mention. I listened to BTS's 7. They finally sound like themselves again. I knew it the moment I saw Black Swan and On. For the past handful of years, their albums have sounded very contrived, sort of artificial. Cash grabby. Which makes sense, they are national treasures now, a very powerful brand, and they've always been contrived because they're Korean idols. 

But when I listened to their music, I always felt like I could hear them. The human beings behind all the bullshit. Even when they composed music just for their contract, because they had to get up and go to work and that's just how it is, it still felt like them. Converse High is a very forgettable song, but Namjoon's laugh at the end is reminiscent of the hip hop music he grew up listening to. Stuff like that. Little things. 

Whatever has been going on since DNA, I haven't been a fan of. I liked Dionysius a lot, but most of the songs.....???? It didn't feel like they were making them because they were inspired by another human being's art, it sounded like they were slapping together sounds based on the DNA formula, the sound that got them recognized internationally and got their company selling more tickets than ever. 

Not to say that this analysis is correct at all, this is just me making sense of why I haven't cared about their music for this past while. It probably says more about me than it does about what's going on over yonder, I am not privy to the delicate machinations of Bighit Incorporated. But I'll always like their mixtapes more. Always. The music video for Daechwita is absolute perfection. Nothing more beautiful than a Korean artist being so inspired by the art made by black Americans that it eschews the devious hand of colonialism. Traditional Korean instruments, motifs, imagery and renaissance all brought to the forefront because of the voices of black American artists that speak firstly to, and about, freedom. Stunning. Nut after nut after nut.

The same thing happened with Lay of EXO, he put out a music video for Lit that is the most Chinese thing I've ever seen, all while rapping in Chinese. And doing black American dances. Not a whisper of white violence to be seen. Breathtaking. I love to see it. 

Back to my boys though, I simply could not have prepared myself for Louder Than Bombs. And that song where 95s make me third wheel for three minutes straight. And that song where they talk about each other and us and you can tell they love each other and for some reason, us. 

Yeah. They're back. I have a lot to catch up on, I don't even know what godforsaken app they're on these days. It'll be interesting to see how much they've changed and how much they've remained the same.

I hate Dynamite though. Sounds like a song I'd hear on the radio here, and I don't listen to the radio. On purpose. Jungkook sounds like Shawn Mendes or whoever. I hate it a lot. Sorry to this man. 

...Huh. The panic attack receded. My heart rate is back to normal and my fingers aren't shaking anymore. Whatever that means.


	54. Chapter 54

**October 28, 2020**

**12:18 PM**

Taylor Swift found dead. I ate yesterday's costume for breakfast. 

(I had to make sure she wasn't actually dead or something, 2020 can't take a fucking joke and I was thinking about Chadwick Boseman the day he died so now I have ptsd ((I mean even more ptsd than I already do.))

I am human Inuyasha today. Still contemplating confessing my feelings (????) to my tattoo artist. Still feels spectacularly stupid to get involved with a person that's already left marks in my skin cuz if we somehow get together and it all goes wrong I'll never be free of their memory. Also gonna make getting future tattoos complicated regardless of what happens.

I have seven hours to chicken out.


	55. Chapter 55

**6:16 PM**

I have one hour to chicken out. 

I'm so fucking nervous. I don't know why I'm about to disturb my own peace like this. Is this really that serious? Aren't they gonna drop a nuclear weapon on us soon anyway? Why am I so ....like this? 

To make things worse, I came across a Japanese phrase this very fucking _morning_ that sort of describes how I'm feeling. Koi no yokan: "The sense a person has upon meeting another person that future love between them is inevitable. This is not the same as love at first sight. For example, your scent was never unfamiliar." 

Do you think we could have met before? Like maybe we were a part of the same star a long time ago? What secret is the universe keeping from me? Who is this person to me? 

You have to understand, I'm not usually like this. I don't make decisions based purely on emotion. I'll think anything and everything to death. Everything about what it is I think I'm about to do sounds completely unreasonable to me. I can think of twenty different reasons why this is a bad idea. An absolutely terrible idea. 

Me? In love? What would that even look like? What disgusting little feelings am I capable of experiencing? I'm so out of my depth here. 

I mean I write a lot of love stories on this website, but that's because I can understand why two people who are not me can love each other. I know what looks like, I can empathize with a person in love. Love stories make sense. Love makes sense. But you throw me, my actual person into the mix, and I'm????? So confused. Can't tell you which way is up, much less why the fuck anyone would ever fall in love with me. 

It's hard enough accepting when someone likes me. When they enjoy my presence. I've had two friends call me their favorite person in the past month and I'm still. Confused. But I've undergone some kind of metamorphosis. I changed with the leaves and the seasons, even when I thought I wasn't going to. So even though I'm confused, I'll accept it when someone tells me I'm their favorite. It's not fair to them not to. 

But uh. This feels different. This thing with this person. As batshit as this sounds, I think I'm in love with them already. And I don't like that, that doesn't make sense. I am an exceedingly rational person and it sounds like I've lost my mind, even to my own ears. 

.....Holy shit I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna go there and open my mouth. I have no idea what's going to come out. I've been rehearsing yet another fucking speech to myself over the past few days. If I have lost my mind, at least I'm committing to it. The last speech I rehearsed ended up being a pointless waste of time. All of this might very well also become much ado about nothing. I'm gonna save this as a draft and update it after the fact. 

If I get rejected, I'm going to give myself permission to mourn. As sick of mourning as I've become. I'm going to try and be kind to myself. I can give myself the grace to make a truly stupid decision for once in my fucking life. I can go mad if I'm going to be mad at the very edge of the world. 

PS: Inuyasha? Also found dead. For last minute costumes, I'm truly hitting the bullseye with these looks. Serotonin never came so easy.

**7:30 PM**

I'm here. In my car, outside the parlor. Shaking like a leaf. This feels like a panic attack except it's not my brain freaking out on me over nothing. This isn't nothing. 

They get out of work at 8pm. I only know that because I had to for my tattoo but I still feel like a stalker. I don't remember what other days they work so if I don't do it now, it'll be next Wednesday before I get the chance. And by then, it might be too late. The election results will come out while I wait for my test results (I'm gonna get tested and ask them to get tested too so that we're not giving each other canoli if we hang out.) 

If the election results come out and it's awful, I don't know if I'll be okay enough to do this. If I'll even want to. 

Twenty four minutes left to chicken out. Fucking hell. 

Fuck. Fuck.

7:44 PM 

They're not in, but they were supposed to be. Now I'm worried they might be sick. Oh god. What if they caught covid and it kills them alone at home like so many other people? What if they have preexisting conditions? What if they're scared? 

I'm going to call them. Hopefully I have the right number, they never responded when I texted about the tattoo. If I'm crossing a boundary, I'll apologize and keep it moving, but I need to know that they're okay.

**7:52 PM**

I called but there was no answer. Understandable. I sent a text asking if they were okay. I might send another one asking them to please tell me, otherwise I'll be worried sick. The lady inside said they're supposed to work tomorrow but she's not sure. I'm not going back, it'll make me feel too gross. 

God I hope they're okay. I don't want to think about them hurting alone.

**9:06 PM**

_Yesss of course i appreciate the check up_

Their response. I started crying on the way home as my brain bombarded me with all the reasons why they might not be at work. All of them perfectly plausible, and even more terrifying for it. By the time I was parking, they'd responded. 

So I gues I could leave it here. But I have the overwhelming urge to confess everything over text, which is infinitely worse because my blabber will be documented for all eternity (unless they delete the texts of course.) 

Before i got on the elevator, I saw the lady I'm weirdly fond of sitting there, minding her business. I hesitated before asking if I could sit and ask for advice about this. This feeling, this knowing, this draw I have to this person. And then we talked for over an hour. Well, she mostly talked. I just listened. 

Black elders have this roundabout way of talking that, for someone as impatient as me, is too long a road to get to the point. But even as she told me about her husband, and her children, and the time she was in a COMA (I couldn't just dip after she said that last one, come on,) ultimately, she said a handful of things that shot me point blank in the face. 

The first thing she said was if I feel god in the room when I'm around my person, then it's right. I don't know what god is and I don't think I ever will. But my artist and I have matching tattoos and for someone who doesn't let anyone in their bed (sleepovers with my best friend don't count), I sure do want this person to lay under the covers with me and let me keep them warm. And for someone who doesn't cry easily, I sure was near hysterical at the mere thought of this person in particular dying. So maybe that's god. The space between us. 

The second thing this woman said was more of a personal anecdote. She said she knew when it was time to change. The universe (or, in her words, god) told her that it was time. And she said the next step after that was to reach out - her hand was in the air and everything - and grab on. 

I have a terrible memory and I'm forgetting everything else, but I wanted to remember that. I've just been sitting here, on my couch, typing this. My fingers are bandaged because I chewed my nails bloody worrying about how today would go. Seven fingers needed bandages, the skin too raw and the nerves too exposed to leave them be. I don't usually need so many, and I can usually handle the pain, but I guess I really went for it this time. 

I'm gonna text them. I have to do it before midnight otherwise they might think I'm only reaching out because of how lonely the night becomes. I guess that's part of it, too. But mostly I just really really like them.

**11:13 PM**

I did it. 

  
  


  
  


It doesn't feel bad. At all. They still haven't responded and that could mean a million different things, but I'm okay. I don't feel disgusting. I don't feel ignored, I don't feel like a nuisance. If I crossed a boundary, I expect this person to tell me so that I can apologize and never cross that line again. It feels good to rely on myself to do the right thing. It feels good to trust myself. I feel powerful. I could scoop the moon up with my bare hands, cracks and all. 

For the historians, the above urls are IDs for the images I screenshotted of my text messages. I use tumblr as an image hosting site when I post pictures here because it's the most painless way I know to do it. If you don't know what a screenshot or a text or tumblr is, don't worry about it. If you can't see what my texts said, there's nothing I can really do. I guess I could transcribe them word for word here, but I don't want to. This secret is for those of us still alive, in this part of time. 


	56. Chapter 56

**October 29, 2020**

**11:27 PM**

The white hot anticipation that shot through me every time I got a text message all day? Unparalleled. I'd have an easier time with heroin. 

They still haven't responded. The last message I felt compelled to send them was this: 

  
  


And that's it. That's finally all I have to say. I still feel okay. It's weird, but I like it. 

Maybe we'll meet again someday. Maybe they'll fall in love with me first next time. Maybe we're in love in a parallel universe and that's why I immediately recognized them. Whatever the case may be, it is what it is. 

Today was rough, though. Not because of this. A youtuber I'm a patron for may be seriously sick and I'm worried to death for her. It doesn't sound like covid, and that's the worst part about this year. 

The virus isn't unprecedented. It was very fucking precedented. Doctors and their med students precedented it. Public health professionals precedented it. Obama precedented it. Yes I'm using precedented wrong in these sentences. But the virus isn't a shock. The way this country is handling it isn't a shock. From the government to the people, not of it a shock. Not if you've been paying attention. It's all disgusting and evil and ugly, but par for the course. 

Climate change, too. Not unprecedented. We've known what was coming for a very long time now. The carnage is horrific and difficult to bear witness to. But not unprecedented. 

It's everything else about this year. I spoke to someone three days ago who told me her husband died in a car crash. Not from covid. I've heard about too many people losing loved ones outside of covid. Too many people losing other things outside of covid, outside of climate change, outside of anything that could ever be predicted. 

That's what's unprecedented. That's where the terror is. I'm worried about so many people all the time. I want my youtuber to be okay. There's another one who was supposed to have a baby this week and I know about the maternal mortality rate in this country for black women so if something goes wrong, it won't be unprecedented, but I'm worried for her and her husband and her baby regardless. 

I worry about those of you keeping me company here. I want desperately for you all to be safe and warm and loved. 

I worry about my kids. One I hadn't seen for two weeks and all I could think was that something terrible had happened to him or his family. He's my tiny little Karen refugee, a third grader who believes that a S.W.A.T vehicle will save him from a rain of bullets. My bus isn't bulletproof and he might very well have to live through another civil war, but as long as he's on my bus, no one lays a fucking finger on him. It was rough not knowing if he was okay for so long. 

I have yet another bubbly little black boy on my bus. It's most unusual, for a dark skinned, middle school, black boy to exude such levity considering what he probably has to put up with. I hope the light inside of him never dies. His eyes eyes absolutely sparkle with it, it's so easy to identify him from the mass of peers that ride the bus every day. 

He's the only one who has to cross the street after getting off and people don't always stop for bus stop signs. I told him to wait until the bus leaves and let the light turned green before crossing the road. I refuse to watch him be murdered in front of my eyes, I can barely handle seeing roadkill. The day I watch a child die in front of me is the day I fucking kill myself. 

I was considering bringing mandarins for them all to take home with them every day. It won't solve their hunger problems but it would be better than going to bed hungry. Except I've encountered a bit of a dilemma. 

One, they can't eat on the bus. They'd have to take off the masks to do it, and all would grab the mandarins from the same bag. Too many chances for exposure and cross contamination. I could make each and every one of them sanitize their hands and wait until they get home to peel the fruit and eat it. It would take up a lot of time, but it would be worth it. Except. 

Two, I don't know if they have siblings or not. Bringing home food you can't or don't want to share with your equally hungry siblings is a psychological weight that they might feel guilty for carrying. A sort of version of survivor's guilt. Some of them have a lot of family living at home and depending on how involved their role is, this could unwittingly scar them. 

Three. I don't want to provide a sense of safety and fulfill a very small need they have only for it to become one more thing that they lose when schools shut down again. I know that there are positive cases of covid among these kids already, even if I refuse to look at any of the numbers. If they feel safe around me or they feel like they can talk to me, or if I'm the only adult in their life that they trust, it's going to be difficult enough for them to lose that. To bring food for them every day and have it be the only time they eat twice a day, only for that to disappear, too? To go back to being mostly hungry again? It's unbearable even just to think about. 

Four. If one of these kids is allergic to citrus or something and they have a reaction, I am fully liable for hurting them. I will lose my job and if the family wants to sue, they can sue me directly. Think lunchlady arrested for feeding a child that couldn't pay for lunch. Or teacher who was arrested for letting her student use her medical insurance. In the end, getting myself fired might ruin everything for no reason. 

Well, not no reason. Because I wanted to try and fix a problem that breaks my heart. For trying to feed kids I know are hungry. 

Okay, I've answered my own questions. I don't think that sticking my nose where it doesn't belong is going to be helpful here. 

It's upsetting. It makes me feel even more helpless than I already do. I hate this feeling the most. 

So today was hard. I just have to stand by and watch people who don't deserve to be hurt get hurt and there's nothing I can do about it. 

My Ichigo outfit turned out better than I thought it would, though. For someone just wrapped in black veils. I'm exhausted of this, by the way. I've had to frantically run around my apartment haphazardly throwing outfits on before I lost the sun all week. I haven't managed to get up early enough to do everything I needed to, and by the time I get out of work, it's an arms race against sunset. 

We start winter hours on Sunday. Clocks go back an hour. The timing of my Halloween shenanigans is breathtaking. 

I asked my friend to get me the wigs not even two weeks ago. They arrived on Friday. This is the last week of October. Sunday is daylight savings time. So this is also the last week I would've been able to come home before the sun went down to do these costumes and get decent pictures in them. This might also be the last Halloween I ever have, so yeah. 

There is great significance about it this year. I'm happy I didn't give up on it, I've been really proud of my costumes. I'm gonna try and be Howl tomorrow. I have a hoodie that's in the vague conceptual range of his pink jacket and that might have to be all I do. No time or energy to get his accessories. This will be a good break for when I do Medusa, her costume is gonna take all the energy I can give. 

All my bills are paid, no beginning-of-the-month mad scramble. I have to go to the DMV and give them my medical card otherwise they snatching my commercial driver license away by December. I don't like this medical gatekeeping, just because someone is sick doesn't mean they can't do their job. I don't know why they would need a medical card if my arms, legs and eyes are still working. Disabled people go through enough as is, this feels so gross and targeted toward them. I hope I'm wrong, though. 

I also have a gift for a friend who is going to be giving us all gifts for Halloween. I didn't agree to the gift because I didn't have anything for her in return, but now that I do, I'm excited to see what she got me. I think she'll like her gifts. This is M, one of the two friends I want to get to know better. A was the one who liked my pasta. I figure I should keep track of them by pseudonym if I'm gonna keep mentioning them here. 

I hope tomorrow is a better day than today was.


	57. Chapter 57

**October 30, 2020**

At my best friend's house. Her childhood friend, J, is here and I've made the dumplings I was supposed to for the kimchi stew so I'm letting them commiserate. 

Today was a Big Day. One of my kids waited to tell me about the masks they made at school today. She's my tiny doctor, the one who taught me about pumpkins. She was really excited about her unicorn keychain, it's pink. Pink is her favorite color -

**10 51 PM**

Full. Full of food. Pleasantly buzzed. "Zia..." J's wiggling fingers, "...Zia." I clasped fingers with my friend's. "I love you." 

"Thank you," I said. "I love you, too."

And then I noticed that we have tattoos in the same place on our inner arms. Me and my best friend's childhood friend. Weird, right?

Today, as I was waiting for the elevator, I saw someone from my own childhood waiting for it, too. I was in my Howl wig, and I had a mask on, so she had no hope of recognizing me. Which was bizarre. I heard her speak to her mom in our language and I understood every word. 

Memories of our childhood came to mind as I stared at her. As a kids, she peed the bed, so every time her sister and us made blanket forts, her mattress was the punishment mattress. It was pink, fuscia pink. 

We also used to pretend to bake with maize grains and water. Hers always turned out right, very sweet. I thought they were perfect. Just as good as real food. 

I remember when they left the country. I was five. I was gonna miss her cooking so very much. 

We met again a continent later, twelve years ago. Here. In this city. Our moms were friends, I think. I don't remember why they stopped talking. 

I held her sister's newborn baby one day after he was born. Against my will, by the way. I was terrified I would drop him. I didn't move for a solid hour, until he was taken from me. I was roasted for not being a natural. Women in my culture are expected to be naturals with children. It's a lie that brings grief to every involved party but no one talks about it. 

God that baby must be like....cognizant now. Contemplating this world with us. Walks and talks and probably grew teeth while he was at it. I'm growing teeth too, but they're impacted wisdom teeth. I was never gonna afford to get them removed. One more thing on the list of things that could kill me. 

This girl, we have the same hands. Same shape, same size, same shade of brown. I always thought I had weirdly shaped hands. I hate my hands. But when I saw hers, and realized they were exactly like mine, I didn't hate them. I liked watching her pick at her nails, I liked seeing them move like hands do. 

I didn't say anything to her at all. She didn't recognize a single thing about me. I never leave the house without a mask on, so I'm just going to keep running into her, over and over, without her knowing who I am. I might end up alone in the elevator with her again, might ask her to press the button for my floor again. She doesn't wear her mask and I do. We are fundamentally different people and we always have been. 

What a strange thing, to be a person. I'll never get used to it. 

I think my artist would have liked to touch my skin. Anyone that ever has tells me it's weirdly soft. Like freakishly soft. It would have been nice to watch them react to that. To see if they liked how soft I am all over. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea. It's not my own cup of tea. I think about my body and I have to stop immediately. But I would have liked to see it through a gentle person's eyes. I think my body deserves that, even if I can't be the one to deliver it. 

I think I would have let them talk me through my panic attacks with me. I do it all myself; speaking out loud about what's happening to me as they happen, explaining to myself why I'm going to be okay to the part of my brain that thinks I'm dying. I think I've talked about this already, I'm sorry. I just never realized how lonely taking care of myself is. It's something I know I have to do, I just....yeah.

I'm proud of myself, don't get me wrong. 

I just can't help imagining that soft, pretty, soothing voice wrapping around me in the dark. Telling me everything is going to be okay. I know I'd do the same thing for them, too. I'd hold them tight and tell them every single lie that they needed to hear to get them through the day. Until they realized that they are alive and they deserve to be and that's the real truth, despite all of its simplicity.

 **November 1, 2020**

**9:57 PM**

Halloween made me so happy. Healed Medusa turned out beautiful. Even if she looked like me. 

Howl turned out great, too. I had to tape a piece of notebook paper with the name SOPHIE on it to my plant to get the pictures of them flying in the beginning of the movie. It looked completely silly and I couldn't stop laughing as I scrolled the pictures. In the camera, sophie was written backwards. 

I asked my best friend's mom to take pictures of me in my himation, blind in my contacts. I had to do it on their porch to get some light because the sun was going down by the time I was finished getting ready. Their neighbors were on the fucking r o o f just watching me pose for pictures for twenty solid minutes. An altogether embarrassing experience. I loved it. 

I made her mom laugh, but it was always an accident. I don't understand her style of humor but I'm okay with that. I don't expect myself to understand the humor of a fifty year old Filipino woman, but it was still nice hearing her laugh. Maybe one day I'll be able to figure out the catalyst. 

Several of our gay little squad stopped by throughout the day. M, our hottest friend, gave us all our gifts and I gave her hers in return. We gave each other pins and cards. She's turning her bedroom into a forest and the doormat I gave her matches her vision. She was dressed up as a demon, ears and everything. Like I said, she's our hottest friend. She looked hot. 

Everybody essentially dressed up. We knew we weren't to parties or whatever but we were all like I'll be damned if Halloween slips from my grasp. One was a character from Nightmare Before Christmas, never seen it, but seeing the videos she took of herself in a random field in her outfit made me very, very happy. Another was an old lady, one was Beetleguise. All of us absolutely wiped out by the week and still holding onto the smallest petals of joy we could find. 

It was a beautiful weekend. I am a very lucky person. To have friends, to be able to make joy for myself with my own two hands. To be safe, in my home, as I type this. I was so tired I slept all day today, and I'm happy to be able to do that, too. 

I work tomorrow, and then I have Tuesday and Wednesday off. The elections are going to be a nightmare in the possible coming weeks, I don't think they'll have anything resolved by the end of this week. I don't know what kind of violence could break out, if it's going to be equal to or worse than what we've already seen this year. I don't know anything. I do know that everything was good yesterday. I know I'm okay today. I would like for that to be remembered. 

As far as the love of my life or whatever? Still no response. The yearning has gotten worse, but I'm allowing it. I think about them all the time. I'm not sure when I'll ever stop thinking about them. I hope they had a good weekend, too. I hope they're okay, too. I hope hope hope they survive whatever the fuck is coming. For me. For my ghost.


	58. Chapter 58

**November 2, 2020**

**9:51 PM**

I liked Naruto as a kid. One of my favorite Naruto openings is called Blue Bird. 

The bus I drive is called a Blue Bird. 

I used to have a reloadable "visa" card, it was the only one without all the extra fees I could get at w*lmart, and I'd use it to online shop back when I gave a shit about my identity being stolen sometime earlier this year. It was called Blue Bird. 

One of my favorite Hozier songs is No Plan, and one of my favorite lines from that entire album come from that song.

 _Blue bird, I know you're beat, baby. But your secret is safe with me._

I wish it all meant something, all these coincidences. 

I wish it meant something that one of my elementary kids calls me Rose, and that her favorite color is blue, and that's one half of the duo that survives the Titanic in Titanic. I wish it meant something that my handful of high school friends have managed to stay in contact with each other throughout almost ten years. 

I wish it meant something that there's a specific type of nose in the world that hurts my chest. Trixie Mattel's human part, Brian, has this nose. I've seen a person in a car on the highway with this nose and almost crashed my car staring at them. Long, and very particularly shaped. Every time I see it, and I do mean every time, I get this unrelenting ache in the center of me. I don't fucking know why, and I never will. 

I wish it meant something, the fact that I've stayed alive all these years. I wish it meant something that my part of the city hasn't seen the worst climate change has to offer. I wish it meant something that my tattoo artist remembers me as well as I remember them. I really wish it did. 

I wish we'd have gotten the chance to talk about the stars. I would have loved to hear what they had to say. They had the tendency to get stuck on words, right in the middle of a sentence. All it ever made me want to do was ask them to start over, at their own pace, so I could listen to them better.


	59. Chapter 59

**November 3, 2020**

**2:53 PM**

It feels like millions of us have been holding our breath for days. Last night especially, I couldn't sleep and I knew that millions upon millions of people were feeling exactly the same way I was. The quiet has always been a little sinister to me, but that felt different. 

I downed a 1.5 liter bottle of wine alone, and it wasn't enough to get me to sleep. I then took four sleeping pills and wondered, right until I fell asleep, if I had accidentally overdosed. 

I've asked my friends to come over for election eve. I'm staying away from all news, and they are, too. They have work tomorrow so it can't be for long, but I can't relive 2016 by myself. I stayed up all night just to find out Donald duck won and a numbness set in; so cold that it left me speechless for days. I was still in college but I didn't go to class all week. 

There's a sign from my college that went viral online. This group of buff, white college boys sitting at a table, the sign promising to walk whoever needed it to classes all day. I hope they're okay too, whatever happens tonight. 

At least the relentless bullying is over. The nonstop ads feigning like my humanity holds meaning, the piles of texts every day asking if I voted when I voted weeks ago. I didn't take that into account when I confessed my feelings, by the way, that I would receive countless text messages every day and none of them would be from the person I wanted it to be. A different kind of torture I created all for myself. 

I have to go get onions for the pasta I'm making. And shrimp. Damn, I should have asked if anyone was allergic.

 **3:52 PM**

I know, by the way. That I've officially given up all rights to judge anyone else for how they're handling covid. I know.


	60. Chapter 60

**November 4, 2020**

**3:06 PM**

Woke up miserably hungover at around 10am, finally checked to see results, they were trapped in the exact limbo we all knew were coming. Joseph looks like he's winning but votes are still being counted and will continue to be counted for the next however long.

My friends managed to make it last night, I didn't think they all would. Every last one had work today, sans one. It was nice, they loved my shrimp pasta. I made an egg version to stand in for the shrimp and even though it turned out kinda dry, they still loved it. How.......nice. How very very nice.

A small part of me is worried that I'll ruin pasta for them forever if I die. Instead of a good food, it'll be a reminder of me and my horseshit existence. But this is life, I guess. People will remember my horseshit existence whether or not I impose said existence on them. 

The weather is gorgeous outside, the sun is lighting up my entire room. Kind of hard to stay in a bad mood when I'm surrounded by so much. It feels like the sun is trying its hardest to give me a hug, and you know what, I accept. It's gonna be gone altogether by 5pm anyway, I'll take what I can get while I can get it.

My anxiety isn't as debilitating as it used to be, but I'm worried about people whose anxiety is. We're gonna be teetering on a tightrope for a minute now, it won't be easy at all to forget how much hangs in the balance. What a difficult time it is, on top of all these other difficult times, on top of all the smaller, more personally difficult times. 

I go back to work tomorrow. I wonder if my kids are scared.


	61. Chapter 61

**11:30 PM**

I can't fucking believe that it's still the 4th. Today alone has felt like everything 2020 has had to offer condensed into 24 hours. 

I want to finish so many of my stories before the power goes out or whatever the fuck. Before powerlines and cellphone towers come down. 

I just can't seem to lift a finger anymore. Can't seem to care. 

Everything is too quiet in the online circles I frequent. Twitter, Instagram. Granted, I don't follow more than 100 people on either platform, but still. It's so eery. The silence is absolutely deafening. How can so many people scream without making a single sound? How can I? 

Time to be disgusting, buckle in. 

Growing up has been a joy. Watching myself change over time has been a joy. Fitting together with new people, time and time again, who have also changed, who have also decided that they were going to do better come hell or high water, has been a joy. I used to be terrified of growing up, of leaving myself behind, the things I love behind. 

But that's not what happened. I brought everything I love with me. And now if someone tries to hurt me, I'm big enough to make them stop. Despite everything, despite all the difficulty that comes with adulthood, I wouldn't take a boatload of money to be a child again. Millions, billions, I wouldn't go back. And it would have been nice, to return to my terrified, childhood self, and tell them don't worry. Everything makes sense, eventually. You get a thousand chances to love yourself. To love other people. Survive for tonight, until tomorrow becomes easier. You have to understand how beautiful the world truly is. 

I've never had an easy time being called pretty. It always feels like this wild maze of convoluted, psychological gymnastics that people imposed on me without my consent. Men have made being pretty in their eyes a scary experience for me since before I was even a teenager. 

It always takes me by surprise when someone calls me pretty, and it angers me when they get angry about that. Like it's something I'm supposed to know by myself, like it isn't something that's brought a great deal of pain into my life. Like being pretty isn't this insanely political thing that people use to determine your worth. Like there aren't endless institutions that declare me worthless despite how pretty I supposedly am. Like I don't have such a severe experience with ptsd that I physically can't stand to look at myself. Like the mere fact that I can't have complicated opinions about my own face without accusation doesn't rob me of a piece of my own agency. Like "looking pretty" has ever truly saved me. 

So I've never wanted to look into the eyes of someone who thought I was pretty. There was too much I didn't want to see; too much blindness on both our ends for something we're supposed to be able to easily perceive with our eyes. There's an element of delusion involved that I simply cannot abide. 

But for the first time in my life, I wanted someone to look at me and think I was pretty. I wanted them to stare at me as long as they wanted to, to take me in like I was art. To praise my skin, my hair, my eyes, my body, my smile. I hate my smile, I look like my dad, but if they thought I had a pretty smile, I would smile for them without worrying about that. 

It's sort of devastating, the fact that I'll never know love in this life. I always felt like that was my destiny, to remain unloved to my last breath. Likeable, I think I have to accept that I might be, but loveable? Loveable?

It's finally the next day. Jesus.

 **November 5, 2020**

**1:00 PM**

:) This is excruciating. 

Time has been mocking me for the last two days, just taking the absolute piss out of me. The last hour alone has lasted a week all by itself. 

I want to think about anything other than these stupid elections, but I can't. How 2020 of me.


	62. Chapter 62

**3:51 PM**

Still at work, just popping in to say that none of the kids from my first school seemed scared. And everyone else I've seen out and about is just....carrying on like normal. No expressions of dread on their faces, no fear in their eyes. It makes me feel insane when everyone does this, but what are they gonna do? Cry at work? In their cars? At the grocery store? Where, exactly, is it appropriate to scream until your voice is gone? 

I can barely speak today, the most I could manage greeting the kids was a wave. I don't know how much energy I can muster for the elementary schoolers. 

I got two more names down, though. I don't know how many that is. Oh, kid's here, gotta go.

 **5:24 PM**

Wow. I'm drained to my very bones. 

People were driving like assholes, parking like assholes, blocking streets like assholes, speeding like assholes, literally all fucking drive long. I drive that stupid bus like a boy scout, but god did I want to drive off a cliff by the time all the kids were gone. 

To make it worse, I drive West for like twenty minutes, so it was just the wrath of the setting sun spearing me in the eyes and cooking my exposed skin like chicken. And my usually quiet kids decided today was the day to scream at the top of their lungs the entire time. 

In the car, about to go up. I know I'll be completely out of energy by the time I get inside my apartment so I have to get this all out of my head while I still can. 

As far as how many names, eighteen. The stop where a zillion kids get off the bus is a lost cause, I think. I'm still gonna try but it's likely that I'll end up failing anyway. One told me a joke that made me smile, though, isn't that sweet? I could tell he worked hard to prepare it, too. Very kind. 

The sun is already gone, I hate winter hours. 

I'm gonna need a remarkable amount of strength to drag my body and my backpack out of this vehicle, into the elevator and to my apartment. I was supposed to wash my hair today, too, but I'm not sure that's going to happen. 

Okay. Here I go.


	63. Chapter 63

**November 7, 2020**

**1:18 PM**

Joe Biden won. 

I....it's not a relief to me, it just feels like the start of a completely different journey. I'm still worried about a lot, and there is still plenty wrong with everything, everywhere. However. 

I am unbelievably proud of the human beings I share these borders with. It feels like we all understand something fundamental about each other, that we will show the fuck up for one another come hell or high water. It feels like millions of people just told me I deserve to live, and they know that I feel the same way about them. 

For the first time in what feels like an eternity, I can take a moment's breath. I can't wait to consume the memes and jokes and bigoted tears. The waiting is finally over. We did good.


	64. Chapter 64

**November 8, 2020**

**7:56 PM**

I don't know how I managed to do it, but I've once again, held myself to unreasonable standards of behavior while completely ignoring the basis of who it is I actually am. I realized that I deserve to be loved a month ago or whenever the hell that was, and now every single mistake I make I hold up like a candle in a dark room, waiting to expose all the secrets I don't; actually; deserve anything. How did I convolute a simple and profound truth this way? When will I learn to take a breath and just let it be a breath?

It's definitely a skill I think I need to develop, how not to spin myself into spaghetti trying not to be perfect, but also holding myself accountable without excusing shitty behavior. Like seeing my friends this week, for example. I literally left one of their houses yesterday after eight of us, her roommate included, got together and got blind drunk in the midst of election hell. Seven people who I know wear their masks, one who I was unsure about, four who I know for sure don't sit down in restaurants, or go to nightclubs or whatever else. All of whom go to work, all of whom get into contact with dozens of other people whose precautions I cannot account for. Like it's such a mess. 

It's shitty of me not to be as safe as possible. It's shitty of me not to social distance while I'm in these gatherings. It's shitty of me to to wear a mask the entire time. It's shitty of me not to limit the number of people that are at the gatherings in my home. And not to disinfect bags and shit after coming home. I don't even wipe surfaces down all that much anymore. I know what to do better than anyone I know, but I still don't do it. 

Maybe that means I'm lazy, or secretly a sociopath who doesn't care if I accidentally kill someone, or maybe it's bad that I don't care if I catch it as long as I can die without suffocating, like instead I get a stroke and I go quickly, and maybe it means I'm a coward that I don't question my friends about what they're doing to stay safe, and maybe it means I'm a bastard for suddenly getting lax with how I'm handling the virus when I was so proud of myself for self isolating for months on end even when every city in the country dropped mandatory quarantine, and maybe I have no right whatsoever to still be angry at people that don't wear masks, and maybe I'm a hypocrite when I hate hypocrisy as vehemently as I do, and maybe that really is reason enough to hate myself without mercy again, and maybe I hold onto the concept of a good person not because I think goodness is important, but because I want to believe that I am important, but I don't believe that, so I think I'll get there one day by cloaking myself in kindness while blood drips from my teeth underneath the drapes.

Maybe. These are all possibilities. All things that are true about me. But I think, the only way I can let terrible things be true about me, is if I let good things be true about me, too. No more lying to myself. No more hiding from myself. No more using self hatred to escape my own complexities. If I'm going to believe in myself, I have to believe that I can be terrible. And the belief comes after, that when I get the chance to be better, I'll do better. I think I'm going to believe in myself. It's difficult, and I hate it, but it's a necessary hate. Hating myself helps no one, except the very people I wouldn't want to help in the first place. 

One of my elementary kids has been gone for a week and I didn't know if I was allowed to worry about her. What if I've had covid for weeks now, because I let my friends stay over that first time, and I didn't secure my mask properly one day and she stood too close to me while she was talking and the angle of the gaps in our masks carried respiratory droplets over to her? I haven't washed my reusable mask in a while, and the disposable ones I have I reuse throughout the week, and they get loose as the week goes on, creating gaps around my face, what if it was that? What if I miss spots while spraying the disinfectant and that hurts the kids? What if they need me to talk to them about covid instead of what they did that day?

Or what if I'm just one person and I'm trying my best, and even though it's absolutely not good enough, that's just going to be the way it is? What if good enough isn't enough, what if something else is enough? What if trying is enough? What if I am enough?

I don't know. It's not a satisfying answer, not knowing. But it's all I have.


	65. Chapter 65

**November 10, 2020**

**12:22 PM**

Just opened my eyes. I had several dreams I don't remember. It's not raining like it was yesterday, that's a relief. I usually love rainy days, but I woke up sad yesterday and spent the entire day on the verge of tears. The only thing I managed to do was the dishes, and even then, it was everything I could do not to cry. 

I've read about several people crying when they found out Joden won, I wish that had been me. I never cry when it's normal to. When Donald won in 2016, I didn't shed a single tear. Until I read that the woman who was suing him for raping her when she was fourteen had dropped her lawsuit that same day. I couldn't imagine how much pain she must have been in. And then I was back to normal, no outside distress as people cried about his presidency all around me.

I don't think that anyone thought their vote was gonna do anything. I think we all thought it was going to be a miserable tie, a race so close that it would add another sting to the electrocution that has been 2020. And we all voted anyway. We all showed up anyway. Even when we had a bare thread of hope left. Even when some of those voters had to go through hell just to be able to vote that day. How beautiful, the strength of human beings. I'm so very proud of them.

But I've been so sad, lately, and yesterday I realized that it's just loneliness. Like a new level of loneliness. I didn't want to cry when the kids were on my bus, I didn't want to cry when other drivers waved at me, or when I was around my friends, or when my roommate was talking to me. Just when it's me, by myself. 

I don't like this at all. My solitude has always been a gift to me. I have always cherished it above socialization. It always felt good to come to my room and be alone with myself, no matter how badly I was feeling about anything. But now that's changing and I don't like it even a little bit. 

I don't like to marinate in my sadness. I never know how long it wants to last and I have other shit I'd like to do. Depression is so annoying. But it's a part of me, and while it remains so, I'll just have to accept that it doesn't like the rain, and it doesn't like being alone, and it doesn't like it when the cold weather makes my knees hurt. It's grown up with me, it would seem. 

Two of my kids noticed that something is off with me. Maybe I didn't say their names as they got on the bus, but I was waiting to do it as they each got off so it would be less chaotic. I still waved and looked them in the eye and said hi? But by the time these two were getting off at their stop, the curious, fearless one with the sad eyes asked me what happened. I asked him what he meant, and he said I seemed angry. And I said that I was okay, not angry at all. I don't know if that reassured him. 

That hurt, the assumption that I was angry. Just one of those things that reminds me how people see me because of my race. I don't have any emotions, of course, but if I do, it must be anger. Can't be anything else. Ever. 

In his defense though, I did have a chicken burrito for lunch and I was picking the chicken out of my teeth while I was driving. Maybe he thought the constant movement of my jaw was me grinding it? Coupled with the greeting I gave them, maybe that's why they thought I was pissed? I don't know. I wore the brightest, pinkest hoodie I have so the kids wouldn't get sucked into my depressed mood. I'm bummed that it didn't work. I don't have the energy anymore to be any type of chipper. 

Two of my elementary schoolers asked how I celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas. I said that I don't, and the relief coming from them was palpable. They told me that they don't either, that they're Buddhist, and I told them that I was Muslim, but a bad one because I'm too lazy to pray. And they laughed and said that they don't pray either. 

They asked me other language I speak, like they knew I most certainly do, just like they knew I'm a refugee like them. (Which is wild to me, given how white my accent is and how vanilla I dress and the blue hair and all. They can't even see my face, how do these tiny human beings divine everything about me so easily?) 

I told them I speak Somali, and they told me they speak Karen. They asked me how to say hi, and I told them, over the roar of the bus and the whoosh of the heaters and my mask. And they repeated it. They told me it sounds a little bit like Chinese, and I said yes, I always thought so, too. I asked them how they say hi, and I repeated it. It sounded a lot like Somali, like the phrase for "I promise" and the Arabic for "I swear to god." At least what I remember from either language, one I grew up speaking, and the other I only ever brushed by. 

As my grasp on my mother's tongue falls apart the longer I'm away from her, I ache to find that languages only exist because two human beings, at the very least, had to find a way to talk to one another. I've always been discouraged to learn new languages because I always knew that over time, the words would all leave my mind because I had no one to talk to. 

I have to leave the house in an hour. I've been meaning to empty the vegetable drawers in my fridge, who knows what new identity those fucking leaves have taken on. I see black through the plastic shelf above them and the horror I feel every time is so deep as to be ancient. I don't want to touch them Mr Krabs. But black mold something something bad for you. Whatever. What isn't.


	66. Chapter 66

**November 12, 2020**

**3:18 AM**

November t w e l v e f t h? Is it twelvth or twelfth??? English is a sham language. For thieves and con artists only. 

Aching in my marrow again, what else is new. I guess how badly I feel it in my legs is new. From my hip bones down to my ankles. Probably just means I'm dehydrated or some stupid shit, being a person is such an embarrassment. Oh, I'll die without water???? Grow up. 

Of course I haven't stopped thinking about my soulmate, the asshole. But I'm finally at the last stage of grief about it, so it's gonna be a handful more times up and down the symptoms before I'll be free to move on.

Denial didn't last too long. I didn't want to talk about this situation because I felt like a true imbicile for overriding my own judgment in the first place. The rational part of me knew this was a lost cause but for once, I wanted to ~*~follow my heart.~*~ Like.....what heart? This person and I were strangers. My attachment to them was probably pathological. How can I prove what the fuck a soulmate even is? I can't. Choke on my own tears, why don't I. 

But I've always believed in soulmates, even though I don't think you ever actually meet them. (But keep in mind, too, that I'm literally from the opposite side of planet earth? I'm nobody's next door neighbor, I'm a goose in the wild and yes I very well _could_ be your soulmate. Yes, me, trapped in the walmart self checkout line with these brown eyes begging for death. Did you find your soulmate or are you buying an avocado? Trick question, the avocado is your soulmate and so am I. ((I also think a soulmate can be anyone, a friend, a sibling. I feel deja vu, like I've already talked about this. I probably have. Sorry about that, I'm probably going to repeat things I've already said a lot. I have mild to severe memory issues.))

So anyway, love is not a rational thing, and gravity isn't real, and we can't see colors that most definitely exist. I wanted to shed the illusion of objectivity and reason and do something just because it felt right. And I didn't regret it. But denial knocked on my door, barged into my mind and tried to convince me that I never gave a shit in the first place. But uh....I did. I still do. And I'm sad because I'm mourning the loss of something that I thought could be both beautiful and mine at the same time. 

What's the point of pretending that isn't the truth? What's the point of pretending I don't care? So many problems could be avoided if I just admitted to myself that I care from the beginning. I care about a fucking lot. I care about things no one thinks about, I care about things no one else cares about, I care about things I wish I didn't care about. Until I face up to the fact that I'm always going to be like this, denial is always going to be the most tumultuous stage of grief for me. 

Then anger came. How dare they? I did not hold my own hand and look into my own eyes and ask myself to come back to their parlor. They did. For a free touch up at that, so not even to give them money in exchange for my time. They just wanted to see me again. I did not misread that, I did not put words in their mouth, I didn't force their eyes into a smile every time they looked at me. And my best friend told me that they definitely didn't have that tattoo under their eye before they met me so what the fuck!! 

And that "I appreciate the check up," god. I really thought they were suicidal or something, that's why I had to immediately be as forward as possible and tell them to keep on living. But then I never got a response and now I feel like I blew everything out of proportion, but did I? Did I? What's so hard about texting someone back? Just reject me! Just say no!!!! 

This solo samba in purgatory is unfair. And for someone that overthinks as much as I do, it's hell on earth. There's enough on my mind, enough about our shared world that is difficult and uncertain right now. I'm pissed that I don't even get the common courtesy of being rejected with grace. I don't even get to walk away with my head high. 

And then of course, the bargaining. What if they have mental health issues that make texting difficult for them? What if they deal with chronic pain and they weren't at work because of a particularly bad flare up? What if they're too depressed to get out of bed? What if they have an abusive partner that saw my texts and jumped to all kinds of conclusions about the nature of our relationship and is holding the phone hostage and won't let them reply? What if, despite my pleading, they didn't get their flu shot and they caught covid and the two illnesses combined to fuck them up worse than they've ever been fucked before? What if they've been harrassed at work in the past and they're afraid of that happening again? What if they just don't like me and they don't know how to tell me? What if they do like me, but when they said come back, they meant later than a week? What if they don't understand that we might not even have a year left and that's why I took the plunge?

??????

Hello???? Enough. 

Depression, it would seem like it's your turn to have your way with me. But you're always having your way with me, aren't you. Naughty naughty. 

Maybe that's why my loneliness is hitting harder than usual. I'm in a four layer lava cake of depression. Seasonal, plus regular, plus pandemic, plus this. It's a wonder I can do anything at all, much less go to work everyday. No wonder my appetite is gone and I'm constantly on the verge of crying. 

I can't believe this is all I have to look forward to. Just more of this. More lonely drives home, more aches to find in the depths of my bones. I think my depression is going to last a while, but it would be weird if it didn't, no? I'm allowed to be quadruple sad. For fuck's sake. I didn't choose any of this. 

And then finally, acceptance. Nothing is ever going to happen between me and my beloved because....I won't let it. Even if they respond months from now or something, it'll be months too late. There isn't much they could say to explain the cruelty of leaving me hanging for so long. Because the facts of the matter are, I heard pain in their voice and felt absolutely no qualms about trying to do something about it. I didn't hesitate. Not about confessing, not about explaining my discomfort with the unclear boundary issues, not about what I wanted, or who I am. It didn't come naturally to me to do any of that, but I did it because I thought it was important to be more brave and honest than I usually am. 

Not giving me an answer is an answer in itself, isn't it. They don't like me. Or if they do, it's not anywhere near enough. They don't like me enough to respect me. To put fifteen seconds worth of work into something that took me two hours to do. 

It hurts to feel like I'm barely worth any effort. To know that even if someone likes me, it won't be enough for them to treat me well. It hurts a lot. But in general, I think I'm tired of people that hesitate about me. That make me feel like I have to grovel to earn their attention. I didn't realize how true this was until now, but I've long since left that impulse behind. I don't want anyone's morsels. I will never again ask anyone to tolerate, or accept, or like me. Absolutely not to love me. If I have to beg for it, then it's not worth having. The best kind of love, I've always thought, was love given freely. I'm not going to wrestle it out of anyone's cold dead hands. I'm going to let it die with them. 

That feels good, in the midst of all this agonizing. I didn't know I had it in me. I didn't know I could be desperate to be loved, to be seen, to be held, but still remain uninterested in all of that if in exchange I have to kneel and beg. I didn't know I cared about myself that much. It feels good to keep surprising myself with my own strength. Soon it will be a self fulfilling prophecy. I'll say "I'm strong enough to do that," and be one hundred percent certain that I am. Isn't life the funniest thing? 

I'm still going to mope around, though. 

There's this image of them that won't leave me. They were kneeling at my feet to take a closer look at my calf. I don't remember what they were saying about the tattoo, but they looked up at me while they were waiting for my answer, and I was struck by just how beautiful they were. 

I don't get taken in by people like that, even the ones I find aesthetically beautiful. It was just them, something about them, and I'll never know what that something was. I'll never know how they calmed me down the way they did, just by speaking to me. There was a tattoo of a scroll with writing on their bicep and all the words had faded together but I wanted to ask what they originally said. I don't really get curious about people's tattoos and I find it a uniquely mortifying experience to describe my own, but theirs intrigued me so much. The numbers on their forehead, the ones on their scalp hidden in their hair. That fucking atom, let's not even talk about the atom. 

"Do you wanna talk about the stars?" they'd interjected, while I was answering their apprentice/girlfriend/pretty girl's questions about the first tattoo they gave me. Namely how it was too embarrassing to talk about out loud because where would I even begin? They didn't really get excited to talk a lot, but they perked up in a way that took me aback as soon as the conversation headed in that direction. 

"Yeah, do you have seven hours?" I replied. And they smiled like they understood me. With their stupid pretty eyes. 

So naturally, every time a song about the stars plays, I think about them. And I've realized that I listen to too many songs about the stars.

But what are any of us gonna do? What human being hasn't looked up at the sky and gasped in awe at how pretty the stars were? Who questions someone that makes art about the stars? Who could possibly misunderstand a sentiment like that? I'm not special. My soulmate isn't special. 

And yes, I do still think they are. My soulmate, I mean. I think they are. I don't know if they recognized me in the same way, but I can guarantee that they'll never meet another person like me ever again. And I hope it stings. I hope they have a million little day dreams about me, the whole nine yards, because that's as close as they're gonna get, unfortunately. 

Of course I'm not going back. Now that I know they're not interested in me, it absolutely would be harrassment to corner them at their workplace. Even if I'm paying them, it makes me feel too icky to do that. It doesn't feel right. 

Would be nice to be given an iota of this consideration back, though. Maybe next time the universe will bring me a soulmate that's nicer to me than they are. 

Ah. There goes that anger again.


	67. Chapter 67

**November 14, 2020**

**2:57 PM**

Dogs have been approaching me more lately. Or they'll just stop in their tracks and stare at me like they want me to pet them. 

Where I grew up, dogs aren't friendly. They're wild, and sometimes they're rabid, and they always attacked the moment they saw you. No animal control, no responsible dog ownership, no training, no nothing. And now I'm here, where people will take my discomfort around dogs deeply personally. Sometimes, even after I've explained everything. 

That's always pissed me off, white people and their dog feelings. There's also that meme "I can excuse racism, but I draw the line at animal cruelty." That's really how they are. I had my psychology teacher in junior year of high school bring her huge dogs to class without warning, and when I spent all of class time huddled in a corner terrified, her first thought wasn't "Hey, why is this obviously ethnic fifteen year old terrified of my behaved dogs?" I found out her actual thoughts days later when her husband, who was my freshman year biology teacher, cornered me outside the lunchroom and demanded to know why I, specifically, didn't like their dogs. 

Cuz his wife was so upset :( About me, specifically :(( The mean brown girl didn't like Spot and Spike :(((( Think about how much they didn't notice or care at all but I, her adult teacher, did :((((( So much so that I went home and complained to my husband, who recognized which girl it was immediately, which means they'd talked about me, specifically, before, and then he was so bothered that the next time he saw me, it was the first thing he brought up. After not speaking to me for two years. 

And then I had to put a grown man over my shoulder and burp him like a baby as I explained that no, it wasn't their dogs, their dogs were nice, I was just afraid of dogs. For reasons I couldn't get into as I passed by him in that random hallway.

Pathetic. To say the absolute least. 

Anyway, this is not about microaggressions that I didn't realize boil my blood to this day, this is about dogs. I don't understand dog body language, and they vibrate too much for my temperament, and I don't do good with sudden loud noises, so the barking is a nightmare. 

But lately, I've petted four different kinds of dogs, all of which approached me first, one of which was a _puppy_. I saw it outside my building on the way in and gasped immediately and it lunged in my direction as soon as it heard the love in my voice but then stopped itself. But I was making a beeline for it and it picked up again and I went down to my knees to pet it. 

I don't know what voice came out of my mouth, but it was baby voice adjacent. I also don't know what is appropriate to say to dogs, puppies especially. I just kept calling it pretty or something, babbling like a fool. The owner picked it up, and then we all got in the elevator together and I don't think I asked the follow up questions you're supposed to ask. How...old is it? What's its name??? I....I don't know. I just stared at it as we all stood there in silence. And then I left. 

Made my night, though. I think I'm only going to get better with dogs, especially if they keep approaching me without hesitation like that. I think they know that I'm full of love. I think they can see it around me. Maybe everyone can. Maybe I glow permanently now. Maybe everyone who meets me leaves feeling warm and calm. What a nice thought.


	68. Chapter 68

**November 17, 2020**

**7:10 PM**

The sun has been gone for hours, I can't believe it's only 7pm.

Best friend just sent me voice messages detailing her grocery trip, where the w*lmart she went to barely had half the stuff she needed. So she has to go to another one and see if she has better luck there. 

I was supposed to start doing activity runs on the bus but I haven't learned the stops because it's not at any of my actual schools. And late buses have been canceled two days in a row. I'm also being scolded for arriving late to my first school and I've insisted on digging my heels in because I clock in exactly on time and they're the ones that fucked up the scheduling. It takes time to do a pre trip inspection on the bus, and then get to the school, and if they aren't going to pay me to come in five minutes early, I'm not going in five minutes early. That's an hour per paycheck gone and I'm just not in the mood to be fucked like this eleven months into our collective 2020. 

I get paid this friday so I sent one of my youtubers my last $20 but that was yesterday and they still haven't cashed out with cashapp and it's making me worried about them. They haven't made a video in forever and they're a black and out nonbinary person living in new york. I can't imagine the various stresses they must be under right now. I hope they're just waiting for the money to become organically available instead of paying for the instant cash out. It's only tuesday so I'll have to wait until thursday to see if that's what actually went down. Won't be able to help being worried until then, though. 

I'm watching divergent, and am about to tear into some chocolate. It's a great movie and it will always piss me off that people wrote it off because they couldn't stand having teenage girls enjoy action movies made just for them. Whatever. 

I'm an erudite, dauntless, candor hybrid I think. Like I'm smart but a complete dumbass at the same time, and I'm not afraid to admit it. But I hate how much the dauntless shriek in the movies, shut up!!!! Why is everyone always running!! Is that a white woman with dreads!! Where are my worker rights!! What's dauntless about standing by and watching a girl get knives thrown at her head!!!! Why are we all pissing in holes!!!! The plumbing in here is bullshit, why is the ceiling leaking. Where is the ventilation in here. You're only costing government money by throwing yourselves out of moving vehicles without training, like how many broken bones is that. 

"What makes you think you can talk to me?" Because her dick is bigger than yours and you both know it, Four. He's still hot, though. So is Eric, even though I'd strangle him with my toes at the first opportunity. 

No I didn't read the books, what makes you think I can read.


	69. Chapter 69

**November 20, 2020**

**7:36 AM**

Ran out of sleeping pills yesterday. Was too tired to go out and get some more. Was hoping that feeling tired all day would mean I'd get to sleep for even a few hours, but once again, I was incorrect. 

I'm supposed to go in for some evals at 9:15. They're supposed to last three or four hours, christ knows why. And then I have to rot in line at the dmv because if I don't submit my paperwork, they will confiscate my license to kill. And then I clock in to start my actual work day. 

Hate crime after hate crime after hate crime, that's what today is shaping up to be. I don't know if I have all that in me, but it's friday. I can come home and get drunk and forget any of this even happened. I'll have to drink a lot of water to prep for that, I don't know how I still have a liver or kidneys with the way I treat them in there. Sorry guys, but it's you or me and most of the time it's you. 

Oh, of course now I'm drifting off. Now I'm sleepy. With one hour left before I have to leave the house TO DRIVE A BUS.

Finally checked my bank account and now that I've been paid, I can scroll through my statement without cringing at all the little purchases that left me with $1.66 before payday. It seems my youtuber did indeed cash out, and instantly, so they ended up paying the fee to do so on tuesday. Absolute migraine to consider the world we live in this early in the morning, but I'm glad they got the money. 

The other youtuber I was deeply worried about is also okay. So if nothing else, there's that. 

Can't decide if I want to take a 30 minute nap or to drink twelve cups of coffee instead. 

.....Coffee it is. C'mon kneecaps, we've got this.


	70. Chapter 70

**November 21, 2020**

**4:20 PM**

HA. Blaze it.

Woke up panicked today because I thought I overslept for work. It's been a while since I've felt that, I guess my mind is fully back to work now. Won't even let me forget about it on my days off. 

Thanksgiving break is coming up though, and then the half assed school month that is December. I'm so glad all our lives were put in danger to go through it. I'm sure that the kids that have been irreversibly psychologically traumatized by covid don't even get to talk about it at home. I wonder if their parents complain to them about the virus and don't let them complain back.

It's kind of like what happens to us. All the working people who haven't gotten a chance to process any of what's happened with covid, many of whom never stopped working at all, having to read articles and social media posts about how badly everyone else is handling it. Oh my god, how much bread did even bake lol I guess by now even your therapist is showing up to work without makeup on, that's how you really know things are bad. What did donald trump tweet about today, god isn't he soooooo stupid? He's so obnoxious when he throws tantrums. Empathy to him and his family though, uwu. 

Whoops sorry about that, I meant to say that I'm out of sugar. And milk and sleeping pills and spaghetti and the little canned diced tomatoes I use to make pasta sauce and the onion I bought whenever the fuck that day was. I have to go to the dollar tree and replace everything but god I'm so tired. I didn't want to do anything today. I'm sick of being outside, that's where the outside is. 

It's a grey day though, and it's making me feel good. That means I'm not as depressed today as I have been lately. I've never noticed that before. I've figured out that not enjoying the things I enjoy is a sign of my mental health taking a dip, but I didn't realize about grey days. It's not me that hates grey skies, it's my depression. Huh. 

Sun's going down already. No part of me likes that. 

Against a thousand odds, I have made a list of things to get while I'm at dollar tree. I shouldn't be this proud of myself for putting a pen to paper and listing the items I need to buy but it honestly is something my brain cannot do. I've tried to force it a thousand times and I've failed a thousand times. I feel like a wizard. 

I'm going to take the trash out on my way and I'm gonna get gas. The trick with gas is to find the cheapest place in town and fill up when you have the money. And keep it full over time, with a few dollars here and there. I'm not always gonna have $30 for gas, but I might have 2 or 3. That's the trick. Of course I can't even keep to my own rules because I want a fancy coffee drink that's gonna get me through the day instead and my mental health is a better investment than the barely empty tank of gas. Or I don't remember how much I have left on my card and don't want to accidentally go into overdraft and the data on my phone has run out so I can't even check my balance. Or I don't remember to drive to my bank's atm to check it manually or I'm too far away from my own atm and paying $2 fee at a closer atm to check if I have $2 is the stupidest thing in the world. Or the $3 I have is all cash or in change and I'm too embarrassed to walk into a gas station and ask for $3 worth of gas and despite shrugging off the shame of a loooot of the bullshit I deal with that is not my fault, looking as poor as I actually am makes me feel ugly and stupid and like I'm worth absolutely nothing. Nothing at all. And it's a feeling I can't fight, that stays with me long enough to make me wonder if that's the real truth and every other time I felt beautiful and intelligent and free were the lie. And I don't like that at all. 

So I'm going to the dollar tree to get groceries. Because I'm poor. And I'm going to wear my teal coat with the rip in the side I haven't sewn closed yet because I've been too tired and scattered and also I'm not sure if I actually can. And speaking of can, I'm going to put canned chicken in the pasta and hope it doesn't taste like metal. And there is nothing wrong with me. 

Well no, there's a lot wrong with me, but being poor isn't my fault. I'm beautiful in my garbage coat. I'm intelligent enough to create a plan around getting gas today, and I'm strong enough to go all the way out of my way to get the cheapest kind. I don't feel strong like I have been feeling lately, but it doesn't change the fact that I am. I'm wearing a fucking bra on my day off. I made a grocery list. I'm wearing _socks_. I fucking got this. 

It's gonna be a bitch hauling everything up here, the milk is gonna be heavy. It's gonna be a bitch taking everything out of the bags and putting them away. I'm probably gonna leave them in the bags until I can deal with them a different time. Just like the clean laundry I have piled on a chair. One feat of superhuman strength at a time.


	71. Chapter 71

**6:50 PM**

Guess who forgot the list. Guess. Guess who forgot. 

So I had to crawl into every single aisle and scoure the shelves for a memory of what the fuck it was I needed. Which is a terrible idea when you're as impulsive as I am. 

My total was $83 if I remember correctly. Time to avoid looking at my bank balance again. I really lasted one day. 

Among my esteemed purchases was a gay notebook that says "girl vibes" in pastel. Some rocks I saw that would match my room. A magnet that says "welcome to the jungle" among pastel green plants. A twelve piece screwdriver set, rest in peace the ikea me of the past. A set of more, but very very tiny, screwdrivers. A magnetic tape measure. The rugged handyman trapped inside my soft, supple body and forced to use my idiot brain can only get what he wants when I walk into hardware aisles. One day, he will break free. 

What else I did in there is a blur. I remembered the milk. I woke up craving cereal today and had to resist diving for my frosted flakes and eating the kernels with my bare hands like the filthy animal that I am. As far as cereal goes, I like things simple. Frosted/bran flakes. Sin of men toast crunch (that's how I say it in my head, every time. Just like how I say huge jacked man, the wolverine fellow.)

I'm sitting in my car typing this, because I know that the second I get home, I'm going to forget everything. Oh, I bought greeting cards!

First of all, I hate that they're all called greeting cards. I know what my grandmother looks like, we've met? I mean not mine, personally, I don't have grandparents, I'm talking about the collective grandparent. 

Why am I talking about grandparents? Greeting cards, yes, I love them a lot. I look through the art and pick the ones with cute designs on them and frame them in my apartment. The two in the living room right now are from halloween, a silhouette of a girl with orange hair looking away. She's dressed like a schoolteacher in heels, and the words say "if you've got it, haunt it". It matches everything and I adore the art style. I don't remember what the other greeting card looks like. Obviously i like it less. 

The words are annoying, though. Don't tell me what I'd say if you don't know. I don't remember what the new ones I got say, but I'm going to scratch the words out. It ruins the art, but they ruined the art first, I don't care. I also think it's hilarious to scratch out the words so they say something stupid. I can't wait to edit. 

I do the same with book covers I don't like, especially the fantasy ones that have white people on the cover when the main characters aren't white. What kind of psychosis is that? What sense does that make? So I put a sticker over the faces because if the publishing company can be stupid and loud, so can I. This character doesn't look like this, here's a cactus. Much better. 

I've been sat here for so long. So many different kinds of people have gone in and out. So many friends, laughing. So many parents with kids. So many people with cars nicer than mine. We all share this world, don't we. We're all worthy of more. We're all -- yuck. I just scratched an itch on my ear and the smell of my armpits hit me THROUGH the mask. Forgot to put on deodorant. Remembered my bra and socks, but not deodorant. What a prize I am.

I've gotta get gas and then I'll be free to go home. Not sure if I'll have the energy to take a shower but what does it matter, I'm the only one that has to put up with the way I smell tonight. I guess I'll have to pick: am I too tired to shower or do I smell to bad to ignore myself? I could just put on deodorant but I don't like swabbing the clean heads with my dirty armpits when I'm going to use that same head to swab my clean armpits. I guess I'll have to decide how much I can't stand that, either, or if I have the energy to clean the head before I'll need it after my next shower. 

Fucking hell, I hate being a person.

**7:27 PM**

Home. I have the upper body strength of a baby and pulled my shoulder lifting the stuff up here. 

I fucking forgot I was cooking before I left, it never ends!!!!!!

 **8:28 PM**

Almost done with the pasta. I just checked the box to see how much of it I made, cuz I used the whole thing, and it's 20oz. I don't know what the fuck an ounce is and in the interest of making my life more difficult, I refuse to learn. Just like I refuse to learn the names of each state in this country. Fortunately for me, americans don't know these names either, and paradoxically, it helps me blend in more easily. 

I don't think most people know what an ounce is, either. I grew up with grams and meters and it was bold of anyone to assume I even knew what those were, but the measure system in this country is appalling. Except for with Fahrenheit. That makes more sense than celsius. HA. Sensius. 

Why am I talking about--oh the pasta. I don't know how to fucking read and it says 25% MORE pasta than usual. So I've accidentally made a mountain of pasta and I'm worried about wasting it. I'll need to eat it, consistently, before it dies to death in the fridge, and I just threw all those moldy vegetables away. I want to live a mold-free life and I don't trust myself to--I CAN FREEZE IT. 

Never mind, crisis averted. All I do is forget that I live in the 21st century. The way we're forced to live though, who can blame me. 

The final verdict is yes, I do have enough energy to take a shower. This is equivalent exchange, for the price of leaving half the groceries and frivolous garbage I bought in the car, the cosmic forces that be have allowed me to bathe myself without collapsing. And as someone that has absolutely collapsed from exhaustion while accomplishing everyday tasks, I appreciate it.


	72. Chapter 72

**November 29, 2020**

**4:09 AM**

Feeling sleepy. Will go to sleep when I want. Haven't had a single sleeping pill since school closed. I always wonder if I'm addicted to them, and then I don't take them when I don't have work and I remember all it is that working really takes from me. 

It makes me angry. But everything makes me angry these days. Unsure how long I'll be like this for. 

To the bitter end? I hope not.

I feel like myself when I drive by windowsills at night. More and more, it becomes a certainty that I'll see plants sitting up high, lit from the warm glow inside the owner's room. So many people reminding themselves of life. What real life is like, what we hold on for, what we're made of. Carbon and dust and light. 

The music playing loud from people's cars, too. It physically hurts to hear it even secondhand, the bass drums so hard it feels like it's crushing my chest. I can't listen to music that loud but I think I understand why people do. I think they're trying to keep themselves alive in the only ways they know how. They need to remember they are flesh and bone and the music helps them remember. 

Time is passing whether I realize it or not, whether I let it or not, whether I go with it or not. 

Soon I must rid myself of this blue hair and with it, the last vestiges of main character syndrome. I am not unique, nothing interesting or shocking is going to happen to me. I'm a person, I'm doing everything I can to keep myself alive, and that's all that matters. So I'm going to bleach my hair again. 

I'm probably going to forgo using coconut oil beforehand (I've run out, that's why,) absolutely fry these strands off my scalp with gusto and gumption, and spend all of december nursing my hair back to health. It will force me to take time out of my day to take care of myself by proxy and it will trick my stupid little brain into acknowledging my being as something worth taking care of. How's that for self fucking care. 

Oooh, and if I do this right, my hair could look as white as snow. And unlike snow, gravity doesn't always work on my hair, it's a much lighter substance. So if I brush my hair out, and it sticks up and out, it could look like I'm falling into the sky on a snowy day. 

Or I could look like a cloud. My final form, for sure. When I rained down I'd be able to see every part of the city at once. See how everyone was keeping themselves and each other alive.


	73. Chapter 73

**11:31 AM**

**December 1, 2020**

First of all, yuck. It's december. Nothing against december, just. Yuck. 

I'm squished in the corner of this tiny room waiting to take my random drug test. Surrounded by men, nowhere to sit. Radio playing muffled from the nurse's station. I gave someone my seat when I submitted my paperwork and I never sat back down cuz then I'd be dick to dick with a man and I'm just not mentally equipped to handle that level of anxiety today. 

Wearing my thicker mask. Feels like I'm being smothered with a pillow every time I get anxious. Standing the whole time I wait for my turn was a mistake. My knees are killing me. I look young though, so maybe no one can tell I'm geriatric. 

Took everything in me to get out of bed today. Same thing yesterday. But everyone seemed tired yesterday so maybe it's just a seasonal thing and - someone just walked in, saw how packed it was, said "oh my god, it's packed," asked how long a urinalysis would take. They told him a good hour and he said he'd just come back. Wish I'd planned this out better. Would love to leave and return at a better time, but it might be another hour's wait from then and I have to go to work. 

Everyone avoiding eye contact, uncomfortable as fuck, bored as hell. I'm standing where the other lady was standing before she was summoned inside. Both of us, squished in the corner because we don't want to be breathed on by strangers. 

I've told them what kind of sleeping pill I take to go to bed before, I wonder if it'll show up as too much considering the dosage I take. Would be nice to know if I'm insane, like, legally. Picture a nurse gently putting their hand on mine, looking lovingly into my eyes, and saying, "Six is too many, luv." 

Okay my neck hurts from looking down at this phone and typing. Sweating from the hoodie I didn't take off because I'm not wearing a bra and every inch of my skin is ashy and I can't just have my dry elbows swinging in the breeze. I mean I could, but I'm not feeling confident enough today to simply a stranger's gaze upon my uncooked skin.

 **12:39 PM**

Still standing in this little corner. Insanely proud of myself for doing it for this long. I mean I'm leaning against the wall but still, I didn't think my calves had - oh that's me.

 **1:11 PM**

Home. Shitting for my life. I think I have enough time for a cup of coffee before I have to leave again. Have I mentioned how much I love being in the modern world yet. So advanced we are. 

The lady was very sweet with me, and she seemed shocked by how long I'd been standing for. It felt like a congratulations for my efforts. I think I should do tai chi, it'll be a slow torture just for me. I hate being bored, I hate being still with my mind undistracted, and I hate moving slow. If I can excel there perhaps I can discover heretofore unknown truths about myself. 

Actually no, that sounds awful, I'm not doing that. I'm finished self actualizing for the rest of the year, thank you.

 **2:13 PM**

Oh my god, I just remembered that she said I have baby eyes. That's why, even with the mask on, she was surprised to see my id and know my age. 

That's going to haunt me for the rest of my life. Baby eyes. Nightmare concept. I always say I'm dressed like a gay baby whenever I'm wearing an outfit that swallows my form, too, like in overalls or yesterday's chìc onesie. The homosexuality comes in the accessorizing, something I never have the energy for. Looking gay is very hard work, although I don't think anyone has ever met me and thought I was heterosexual in my life. 

A deeply comforting thought. 

Like that one time I was having sex with a man and he kept saying "but no gay shit, I'm not into gay shit," over and over as I sat there silently, nakedly, and very much not a man at all. I didn't suggest anything either, nothing to do with his ass if that was what he was worried about, and still he was having a meltdown about possibly doing gay shit with me. Fascinating. 

Anyway, today I look like a gay pirate. Oh sorry, that's an oxymoron, today I look like a pirate. From the neck up anyway. I was brushing my hair last night and after an hour only managed to get through half of it. The rest is up in a loose bun and the hair is falling out in a very sexy, very carefree way. All the things that I am not. 

Wow I was just sitting here for an hour and I'm still going to be late for work. I had so much time to....not be this way.


	74. Chapter 74

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> people are all we've got

**December 2, 2020**

**9:28 PM**

There was a girl in one of my college classes who changed her outfits to match her backpacks. They were subtle prints, pastel colors, all sorts of geometric shapes. I don't typically like patterns but I loved hers. I thought she was so clever, to always get the balance right like that, no matter what she wore. 

She was also painfully quiet, even quieter than I was. I wish I'd just sat next to her one day and asked her to be my friend. 

At my old job, there was a lady who loved the color purple. Purple scarves, purple glasses, purple skirts, purple tops, purple purse with purple lipstick and other purple things inside. Her, I did not feel compelled to befriend, but I loved how much she loved purple. I admired how easy it was to tell exactly what made her happy. I loved how unsorry she was about it. 

Over at the tattoo parlor (where the tattoo artist whom shall not be named works) there's a man who goes out of his way to find baroque-esque furniture and paintings to put up in the waiting area. It's all very hideous, the chairs are impossible to sit in, no one there likes it, and he knows that. 

How absolutely gorgeous. How camp. It's so innocent in its simplicity. It makes me happy to think about all the effort it took him. How many years did he have to search for each piece? Why so many? How much did it cost? Is it easy to love, with how many people hate it? Does loving a thing come so easily to him? Is his love stronger than embarrassment? Stronger than disappointment? 

I think so. 

I love air dancers. Can't look at one without smiling. I feel like I've already mentioned this, but when they ~gy~rate~ to the beat of whatever music I'm playing, it makes me laugh every time, without fail. I've ruined them for my friends, too. They drove by one with its hands stuck under some windshield wipers once and they almost crashed the car laughing. They said it looked like it was bent over twerking to their music and I knew which one they were talking about because I'd seen the same one earlier that same day and also almost crashed the car laughing. 

I love when people wake up and have the imprints of whatever they were sleeping on lining their face.

I love little free libraries. I have to make a map of the ones I've seen around the city and put little supplies in them. Useful things like tampons and hand sanitizer and masks. Useless things like stickers.

I love slowing traffic the fuck down in construction zones so the workers don't get hurt and that little nod they give me as I go by.

I love seeing people breathe in cold weather and their little plumes of dragon breath. 

I love other people who also bite their nails. We make dumb faces while we do it.

On that note, I love the faces that experienced smokers make when they crunch one side of their face to hold the cigarette between their lips. 

I love when people argue with assholes under youtube comments and don't let them run away to hide after they've just said something shitty.

I love when people heave a huge sigh after a long period of serene silence. Like their lungs thought they were asleep before realizing that they weren't and defaulting back to Awake Breathing. 

I love communally suffering at the DMV. Communally suffering in a line. Communally suffering in meetings. Communally suffering in traffic. Communally suffering outside the building where someone pulled the fire alarm. 

I love when people hate the taste of something that is completely benign to me, I find it fascinating. I like that we can accept it without question, without expecting someone to constantly eat something that they hate. 

It reminds me of a boy that sat next to me one day in school as I was reading a book. He said, with softness in his voice, "It's like a movie in your head, huh?" To this day, his display of empathy makes me feel warm and happy. He must have thought so hard about it, why my nose was constantly in books, why I was obsessed. And he got the answer right. 

I don't think I can do what he did. I can't study someone who watches sports obsessively and understand why they like it. Or someone who enjoys jogging. Or my roommate, who always tries new foods and new restaurants no matter what the food is or where the restaurant is. I just don't get it. She doesn't explain either, she just tells me about the new food experiences she has and I listen even though I don't understand. 

One of the kids on my bus never misses the sight of anything beautiful that we drive by. There was a lady at a stoplight with awesome hair and a rainbow backpack....there was a gay lady at a stoplight and I said that I liked her hair and the kiddo immediately agreed before pointing out the backpack to me, which I hadn't seen at first. 

Like we were driving once - well me, I was driving - and the clouds were shooting rainbows around the perimeters in a way I'd never seen before, it was honestly breathtaking. I didn't even have to say anything before the tiny one was staring up at the sky and gasping in awe, too. 

Today she taught me how she speaks at home, in her language. For an asian kid that goes by a white, american name to feel safe enough on my bus to speak her language to me without flinching.....means a lot. 

The sparkly little black boy came out as gay on the bus and now I feel even more protective of him. I'm scared of coming out myself to let him know that he's not alone, that there's a lot of us like him because we're a natural part of the world and we're never gonna disappear no matter how hard they try. But I'm scared that he won't think I count and he won't think I understand and I'll regret having opened my mouth in the first place. 

I just have to hope that my gay little vibes do enough of a job on their own. He doesn't seem afraid to be flamboyant around me. That's enough.

I forget where I was going with all this. How anticlimactic.


	75. Chapter 75

**December 4, 2020**

**3:53 PM**

Waiting for the tiny ones. Staring into the distance. Feeling sad. Don't know why. I look up.

There's a rainbow in the clouds. Not a full one, just a tiny arch, right in front of me. How weird. 

I don't know much about cloud science, so I don't understand why that cloud has a rainbow on top of it when the other clouds don't. I don't see rainbows like this ever. It's so strange to see another one after just mentioning the last one I saw. 

Can't wait to show the kids, I know one of them is absolutely going to love this.

 **8:16 PM**

She did not love it. She barely cared. Even after I told her that the sky was giving her a birthday gift (it was her birthday). I hope she never changes. Pretends to like something she doesn't for someone else, I mean. 

I'm at a gas station, humiliating myself for a cat. 

There was a guy and a girl also humiliating themselves for this cat when I got here. It seems cold but it won't come closer to meet our warm fucking hands for fuck's goddamned sake. 

Wanna give it food. Probably shouldn't or it'll keep coming back here where all these dangerous cars are, expecting food but only getting injured.

 **December 6, 2020**

There's a park in the middle of the city all lit up and pretty. Today I saw brand new clothes on hangers dangling from the trees. Gloves, coats, hats, shirts, scarves. 

_I am not lost,_

\- That's all I could read before my tears started blinding me. The clothes are free to take for whoever might need them. What a beautiful thing to witness, just oot and aboot. 

I think I know who did it, too. I recognize the signature. Feels weird, to say the absolute least. Maybe this is what it feels like to belong to a city. To belong somewhere. 

I feel so inspired. I don't celebrate christmas but I think I'm gonna try wrapping presents to leave downstairs for people to take. I think christmas is going to be hard and lonely and painful for a lot of people this year. I don't know. I want them to be okay. 

I wanna try and write notes, too, but my handwriting is fucking disgusting and honestly, I don't know what to say to a stranger except to hold on. Tomorrow might be better. Tomorrow you might be stronger.

 **December 8, 2020**

Naxariis means kindness. 

In somali culture, the elders dye their hair unnatural colors when they start getting whites. The way I understand it, it's so that nobody thinks you're younger than you are, now that a common indicator like the grey hair has been removed. It's to represent an honest image of yourself while you grapple with the harsh realities of growing older. Sooth yourself but tell the truth at the same time. 

There's a character from game of thrones, dario naharis, that I think the author based on somali culture. I don't know enough about the language to know what dario means, especially given the white spelling in the books and the white pronunciation in the tv show, but I know that his beard is dyed blue in the books. It's one of the things some readers found frustrating about his appearance in the show. I didn't read the books, but based on what I know about dyed beards, dario is probably much older in the books than he is on the show. 

When british colonials landed in the part of somalia that my mom is from, my personal grandfather died getting them the fuck off the land. He saw all that beige skin loose in the wind and said absolutely not, we can ruin our daughters lives just fine by ourselves, thanks. 

I think he was revered for this, not that I would know, hearing it secondhand and all. I think he would hate me if he knew me. My grandmother, too, just like her daughter, would hate me. Or is it the other way around? Am I more like my mom because I hate myself, too? Yeah I think that's it. 

**December 9, 2020**

Last year, I had a kid named freddie on the late bus. As middle schoolers do, he talked openly about who he liked, and he especially talked about liking boys. One day, he got on the bus and told everyone that he had the same name as freddie mercury, and that he was bisexual like freddie mercury. 

He got suspended from that school, I don't remember why. Today, at this new school, he got on the bus. (i was assigned this school at the top of this week with absolutely no warning. my last school closed early or something. I've been getting lost a lot because I didn't have time to practice these new routes. it's been hard and draining. i didn't even get to say goodbye to the kids last week.) 

I recognized freddie immediately. "Freddie, as I live and breathe," were the exact words that flew out of my mouth. I don't normally sound like a chipper 60yr old, but what had to be said had to be said. The kid is memorable and I'm glad he now knows. He still talks about boys, he still gets called gay, and his response still seems to be, "Well. Yeah." 

I think he has this courage because of freddie mercury. It's tough for little bisexual boys, especially if they aren't white, but freddie wasn't white either. I don't know. I'm happy for this kid. I hope he keeps himself close for as long as he can. 

I never told him I love freddie mercury too, and I'm not coming out to him, either, but it's nice knowing we're both alive and that a piece of our sanity was saved by someone like us in just this small way. Three different lives that will unfold, and have unfolded, in three different ways. 

I've been enjoying all the xmas lights. I'm typing this in my car, freezing from the calves down cuz I wore a skirt (and boiling from my torso up because of my coat) and I can see someone's glowy little tree in their window. The abject horror of a stranger being able to see into your whole apartment from the parking lot aside, I'm happy for them. I don't know what kind of work goes into decorating a christmas tree but I bet it's a lot. I'm glad they found the energy.

 **December 15, 2020**

**5:44 PM**

I've finally listened to lorde's albums and that's been helpful getting me through this gloomy ass winter. I came across Ribs last month (??) and it held me together until I squeezed every last drop of life from it. Now I hear it and feel absolutely nothing but it's okay, the rest of her music has resonated. 

I have to be in a specific head space to listen to music and actually hear it, it's so annoying. I've listened to her first album and not given neither a hoot nor a toot about it, and here I am on my second listen absolutely gyrating. Irritating. But what am I gonna do, take my brain out and brush the dust off?? Gotta go to a specialist for that, unfortunately.

**December 17, 2020**

**4:56 AM**

In bed. Desperately hoping to fall asleep so I can awaken in time to see the sun before it disappears. Ever since school closed last week, I've been completely upside down, and while that appears to be my natural circadian rhythm, I fucking want sunlight. I want to SEE it. 

But I get so tired before the day even starts that I miss sunrise. And then I wake up too late to see the sun set. I am trapped in an eternal darkness. Get me out, god. I would make the shittiest vampire. 

I've accomplished nothing all week. Couldn't even do the dishes yesterday. Very very annoying. I gave myself a project, on top of the writing projects I've given myself, and I've appeared to short circuit from pressure no one has placed on me. Geniuses only. Please clap. 

I get paid on friday and I don't know if I'll have enough for the gifts I want to leave. I'm embarrassed it'll be obvious that I'm broke too, and the things I put together will barely mean much. I know people could use food instead, a paid bill, maybe a kind word. I'm not writing the notes I wanted to, I'm too embarrassed by the image of barely legible scratches sincerely trying to convey something meaningful. I just don't like myself enough to leave myself be. 

On that note, this whole gesture makes me feel sick. I know it sounds odd, and I wouldn't be this harsh with someone trying to do something similar, but it feels tainted somehow, because it's coming from me. I don't know why I feel like this, I just wish it would stop. I dig so much poison out of my head with my bare hands, over and over again, but still, there's always more. It makes me tired. I get so tired of myself.

 **December 18, 2020**

**12:43 AM**

Actually managed to get the fuck out of bed and do something today. And by do something, I do mean comb out the inuyasha wig and scoop out the insides of an aloe vera leaf with my bare hands because I lied and the pretty youtube girls have me looking stupid in my own home again. Unrelated to the inuyasha wig. 

Side note, nobody else looked like human inuyasha in the inuyasha wig. Absolutely haunting. What have I been chosen to become? A human being, probably. Thank you for the sign, The Universe. Even though the one and only time I took your sign, you made aloe vera sauce out of me. Cut me open and scooped out my insides. 

**December 21, 2020**

**6:29 PM**

Absolutely wiped out from shopping, and thinking about different age groups and what the fuck they might possibly like. But it's a good tired. 

As soon as school closed, I've been almost catatonic. Too tired to do anything. Truly anything. It hasn't been this bad in a long time, but I do have to applaud my mind and body for stepping on the breaks and shutting shit down. It's been nightmare month after nightmare month, on top of work, and they have Had It. Had: it. 

I don't know how to wrap gifts. Giving and receiving gifts just hasn't been a part of my life, and in this country, it gets kind of intense. Birthdays are a big deal so I give my best friend a gift, but I never really celebrated my birthday and it would be weird to start now. I think, for most people, birthdays just get lonelier and sadder as you get older because you can't really ask other adults to drop everything for you on your birthday, but if you're used to celebrating it, that can feel like a devastating blow, like no one cares about you. I have enough of a difficult time fighting the lies my brain tells me, I don't want more trouble. 

I guess we have eid, but eid looks a lot different in a country that doesn't celebrate the holiday with you. And if you're poor, for eid, you go to bed. Merry eid. I wonder how american expats handle christmas in countries where it's really not that big of a deal. I bet they feel like me. Just like....okay. Secretly, this day is special to me. _Or_ if they're really like me, it's like I Don't Really Feel All That Attached To The Religious History Of This Holiday But I Miss Everyone Else's Enthusiasm So To Keep That Memory With Me I'm Going To Do Something Small As Homage. 

I'm going to have to leave the presents open or see-through so that whoever wants to grab them can look inside first and decide if they want it. I hope nobody makes a mess of the tissue paper. Or breaks any gifts they decide not to take. I don't know. My job here is done. It is up to other people to try to be kind. 

I've noticed two different cashier's openly flirt with two different customers on two different occasions. One got her number and she told him when she got off work and he told her he'd swing by and get her. It was so simple and easy, it took my breath away. I loved how consensual it was, too, not only did she not seem uncomfortable, she was making the plans with him. Wow. Just out in the wild like that. No overthinking on either of their parts. 

At the other store, the cashier was a man. Again, they were flirting so hard it was palpable and she was hesitating after her transaction was over and it didn't seem like he wanted her to go, and yet again, there was me, next in line, too embarrassed to interrupt them. He had a black eye and she didn't care. I understood as I was being rung up. He seemed like a very sweet person. 

I was in Five Below, getting gifts for the younger group, and as I was perusing the notebooks, a man and his partner started looking at them, too. He seemed overwhelmed by just how many people were in there with us, and for good reason, my god was it crowded. He kept repeating the words his daughter had said to him when she asked for her gift, "Something girly, something girly, that's what she said." He couldn't seem to concentrate on each individual notebook and he couldn't seem to process what his partner was saying. 

I happened to be holding something girly right there in my hands, with the intention of buying it myself. I liked the encouraging words inside. So I showed it to them, opened it, explained why it fit what they were looking for. They got the notebook, they got the fuck out of there, and it was a tiny sweet moment to help me cope with the rough ass day I was having. Shopping is a nightmare to me, and christmas shopping is the olympic equivalent. I hope their daughter likes the notebook. 

I was driving home one night and it struck me that people leave their decorative lights on even as they sleep so that...other people can look at them. And I'm sure there's some convoluted social clout game being played, the rules of which go over my head on principle, but I just can't get over how fucking cute that is. There will be light in the darkness. (Bitch.)

 **10:41 PM**

Oh my god, I just remembered that I wanted to do eight days of fic for chanukah on top of all of this. I'm not even disappointed with myself, I'm just shocked by my own hubris. _Eight_ different fic???? I've been writing just one for four years now. To the exclusion of almost all else. Eight. 

This also reminds me of the series I wanted to start when bts were doing their love yourself era. Stories around that theme, with links to resources and tools. And now I can barely listen to their albums on time, much less all of that. They've just released a new one and I'm excited to listen to it because the last one was excellent but god, with what brain cells. 

I am being struck by the urge to write right now, though, so time to go and do that and ignore literally every time sensitive thing breathing down my neck. I have to cancel skillshare because I got the three month free trial or whatever a while ago and have either forgotten to cancel it every month since, or remembered just as it was about to expire and convinced myself I was gonna develop my new skill before it ended. Only to forget again and remember in the middle of the month the following month. 

I think it's on purpose, the three month free trial. Who the fuck is gonna remember to cancel that shit after a quarter of a year???? No one. And quietly, the ten dollars disappears from your bank account. If you're like me and refuse to look at your account after buying a goddamned fancy coffee with your own money, and you're forgetful as is, or you're tired, or both, then it'll take even longer to notice. Boom, six months of skillshare. 

I just have to figure out how to screen record things, or something equivalent, look up the tutorials on the things I want to learn, then ditch the service until I can afford it again. But the energy. But the sieve that is my brain. But the

 **December 22, 2020**

**5:08 AM**

I just remembered that people hurl their spaghetti at the wall to know if it's ready and I'm in hysterics. I'm going to throw my eggs at the wall to crack them.

 **December 23, 2020**

Jesus fucking christ. I bought a geometric set of dishes from the thrift store and as I was unstacking the plates, I found a rectangular piece of paper taped to one of them. I picked it up, immediately saw a picture of legs, and thought it was a dead body. Enter a panic attack. 

Instead, it was a picture of a naked young woman, looking away from the camera and hiding her genitals with her hands. That did nothing to help the panic attack. Worst case scenario, this is a dead, missing, or sex trafficked girl. I feel sick even holding this picture. 

I called my friend because my roommate wasn't home and I couldn't be alone with the kinds of thoughts I was having. I'm calmer now. She called the non emergency police line for me and said she found the picture. She's white passing and knows what happens to black people in this country. She is kind and she takes care of me. 

They said we could toss it or bring it in. I've decided to take it in. I just don't feel comfortable throwing this away. I don't know if they have a database of missing people, or if this girl is in a case file somewhere. I don't know if her family would want to see this picture of her. She looks like she was coerced to take it, regardless of how benign the rest of the circumstances might be. It makes me sad to look at her down-turned head. The way she's covering her private parts. I hate how uncomfortable she looks. I hate whoever did this to her. The person who, like me, could see how much she didn't want to take this picture, and took it anyway. That did this anyway. Fuck that diseased little rat. 

My friend is going to go into the precinct while I wait in the car. I think I should hide my hair before I leave. I'm scared the cops are going to get trigger happy at the mere sight of it. 

I want to throw up. But we're doing this.

 **10:08 PM**

Back home. Every precinct was closed. It was a blizzard outside, which at the very least gave me something to focus on that wasn't this. We're gonna try again tomorrow. I can never remember what days the city is closed on for the holidays but I don't want this picture around me and neither does my friend. 

I want to pour bleach all over those dishes. But I'm going to keep them. I don't know when I'll be able to actually use them, but whoever put that picture inside does not get to win. 

I'm almost done with all the gifts. I'm feeling extra vindictive about trying to be nice. Fuck assholes. Merry fucking christmas.

 **December 24, 2020**

**7:31 PM**

Wanted to leave the gifts before everyone went the hell to bed so they could see them, but late enough that I wouldn't be trapped in the lobby surrounded by people. I failed. That was absolutely. Mortifying. 

I had to return to my apartment to grab everything, and then put them beside the labels I made for Boys/Girls/Adults. Heterosexuals are exhausting but I wasn't about to gender mix the gifts and give any kids a hard time. If boys want to play with trucks and girls want to play with dolls, it's fine. They have the rest of their lives to figure themselves out. 

I walked in on a family of people looking through the gifts with more gifts in my arms and it was absolutely mortifying. They got all self conscious when they saw that it was me leaving them, and seeing them take things, and that's exactly why I didn't want anyone around. 

They said thank you, though. It was someone in the group's birthday and they all found something they liked. That made me happy. Hope they don't feel like they have to acknowledge me anytime they see me hereafter or I'll have to assassinate myself. 

I hope this helped, even a little. I'll have to contact the person that inspired me and catch up with her. I want to be her friend, even though it feels like I have nothing to offer her. This feeling just isn't going to go away, so all I can do is power through it. 

As for me, I ordered several pieces of a papasan and have put the pieces together much in the way of Frankenstein. I had the bowl for a year, so all that was left was the base and cushion. The cushion has finally arrived. I'm making a reading nook in my closet and I can't wait to not read in it. 

We had to put the girl's picture in the trash because the police, ever useful, said they wouldn't take it. Barely gave a fuck, in fact. I put the picture in their trash. The burden no longer rests on me. 

Tonight, I'm okay. Don't feel bad about anything, earlier shot of pure embarrassment aside. I've heard about the vaccine. Here's to little lights in the cold of darkness.


	76. Chapter 76

**December 27, 2020**

**9:52 AM**

Someone fucking fire me. I'm out of sugar. And almost out of shampoo. Other things I'm forgetting. I'm not going outside, it's literally sunday. The stretch of time between christmas and new year's is a surreal landscape that hath bequeathed me The Energy To Clean My Apartment. 

I've done SO much laundry - I forgot laundry in the washer, fuck. 

**10:08 PM**

Little octopus boy carries the delicates within his paws. I'm thinking of naming it W.E.B Dubois but I'm scared of breathing life into it. It already has eyes, what if it wants to start reading and writing or something.

Anyway, I'm doing laundry. Washed one of my reusable masks. I'm all out the disposable ones so r.i.p work me. I also washed a piece of paper, hope there was nothing important on it. Emptying out pockets is another weakness of mine. Another achilles for my other heel. Even though I don't think that's how it works. 

I've written two thousand words of some self indulgent thing. Did the dishes. I still can't touch the plate I found the picture on. I think I'll have to throw it away. It sucks because there were three perfect sets of cups and bowls and plates, all in the shape of octagons, but...yeah. I'm just too disgusted. I like the cups and bowls better anyway. 

I have to get into another fist fight with unemployment but I just don't have the energy. I had to log into the system to redo the whole thing, nixed that and called them instead, only to be told I have to sit down and do hours worth of paperwork despite their already having all my information on file somewhere. To top it off, a friend told me that they were saying on the news over ninety percent of claims were fraudulent. I'm not a mathematician or anything, but that number sounds uhhhh batshit fucking insane. Even without The Plague raging in the background of all of it. 

I fully think they want us to feel both ashamed for needing help during this crisis AND to sew dissent among us as we all wonder who the fuck the fraudulent ones were. Because to me, the likely answer is no one. Everyone who applied for help with their understaffed offices and confusing, outdated system was doing what they were supposed to and they're going to try and fuck them on technicalities. Unlike me - who refused to do the monkey dance for their dumbfuck requirements on purpose - I think a fuck ton of people just didn't know what the hell they were doing. And they might be punished for it.

So I call, I give them my kidney, a dna sample, list three of my most traumatic life events - sans 2020 because they refuse to acknowledge that covid is real and affecting people's lives - only to get a sleepy response from a guy who clearly couldn't give less of a fuck about my particular predicament. The rage that absolutely tore through me? 

I've been feeling less angry over the past few weeks, less like a short fuse one second from blowing up, and christ have I been thankful for it. I'm starting to understand that it's a new trauma response to the nightmare realm I'm stuck in - or rather, an old response to parallel stressors that made me such an angry child - but I still hate it. What the fuck is all this anger going to do? How is it going to help me? I can't change anything. No matter how much I try.

I hung up the phone - isn't it strange how that phrase has stuck around even though we don't hang phones up anymore? - and I didn't yell at the person on the other side. But I needed the rage to pass before I could even think. Dealing with shit like this just makes me feel like I'm suffocating. 

**December 28, 2020**

**8:58 AM**

Been up since 2AM. It's a grey day. I don't feel any sort of way about it. 

I think I'm sad. I think it's a good thing. Haven't been sad in a while. Just angry or tired or irritable or empty. I've been happy, too, though. I miss my sense of peace from earlier this year. The quiet from deep inside. I want it back. I hope it knows it can return safely to me. I'll make room for it. 

It feels like I'm stuck waiting for something, but I don't know what it is. I mean, a new president, for one. Unless these fucking idiots let that shit stain stick around past inauguration and refuse to leave. If only there was a way to fucking stop him. If only there was.....some sort of process....that would strip donald of any power he previously had access to. Guess we'll never know what it is. 

It's gonna be 2021 in five days. What the fuck. No, sincerely. What in the hell and fuck.

I have to go outside and get coconut oil. And that fucking sugar. And a check for rent. I've had january saved up for months now but I guess it's also back to thinking about rent. I'm not worried, I'm gonna do my taxes early as fuck next year and hopefully everything processes in time for me to do another bulk payment. Even with that 600 a week from unemployment, I don't think I made enough this year to owe taxes. This is what we call the first class poverty experience. 

I don't want to do anything. I'm tired of doing things. I _just_ got done getting all my laundry off the bed after months of just sleeping beside it. Can I just enjoy these fresh sheets in silence. Must everything always scream at me. I can't even scream back.

 **December 29, 2020**

**10:07 PM**

Breathtaking. So I was trying to cancel my skillshare subscription when I see that it says I "don't have a subscription." Crawl into my bank account to find the skillshare charge from last month because yes the fuck I do. Only to see that the reason I went into overdraft was because they took NINETY NINE fucking dollars from me. 

I go to the original youtube video and click her link again. $9 a month after the free trial, and underneath it: $99 after the free trial ends. If you don't want to pay $99, then it's $20 a month for a subscription. Which is why youtubers always say "around $10 a month" instead of the actual price of a monthly membership. I got bamboozled by an intelligent youtuber I thought had integrity and I didn't read the fine print before clicking the subscription. Fuck my dumb ass I guess. 

There isn't a contact listed on their website (another red flag) so I messaged them on instagram about that "you don't have a subscription" ass lie. Because according to my bank account, I have one for the next motherfucking year. Christ I'm exhausted. I hate people. 

The concert venue never refunded me my tickets. My apartment complex never refunded me my internet bill. The seller never got back to me about the stolen bicycle I never got a confirmation email about. So tomorrow I have to wake up and rip every single one of their heads off for fucking with me. I've been too tired to remember or bother or both all this time, but this bullshit with skillshare has me livid. Fuck them, fuck me, and fuck 2020.

 **December 31, 2020**

**6:41 AM**

I've done so much shit over the past two days, I'm really proud of myself. All my sheets are clean. I've restocked on sugar and shampoo and coconut oil. My little reading nook is complete, just needs to be decorated. 

I gave about a third of my book collection away, devastating stuff. Didn't realize I had so many volumes of bleach - SPEAKING OF: the disgusting blue hoodie is in the wash after soaking in bleach for two days. It's more of a grey blue and I like it much better. Hopefully it doesn't bleed all over me from here on out cuz you're not supposed to bleach clothes or something. I'll figure it out as I go. 

My hair has been soaked in coconut oil for two days, today I shall do the final round of bleach before I tone it silver. I hope it doesn't look ugly, I can't have another Howl fiasco in my bathroom for the second time this year. I accidentally put my head against the wall earlier and now there's just an oily smudge on my wall because of the coconut oil. I did so well avoiding that for so long. 

Hmmm, what else, what else. I finally stocked one of my two bookshelves with books. Brought my language books out of the storage box they were in and now they're in the living room, waiting for the violent urge to learn a new language to strike me like it does. I'm excited, they were out of sight in my closet for forever, and if I can't see something, it doesn't exist. Like our government with poor people. 

OH. There's a six hundred dollar stimulus check pending in my bank account. I think it'll help a lot of people who've basically given up on ever receiving aide from our so called leaders during this crisis, but it's not nearly enough. The people of this country deserved more. 

I've gotten through 3/4ths (why am I obsessed with fractions this morning) of my comments and have written down my favorite ones. I have seven frames and five pieces of black cardstock with comments in white ink. I'm going for a night sky sort of vibe and haven't decided if they're going in my closet with my nook or staying in my bedroom proper. Feels good to have made so much progress, really feels like I'm welcoming the new year with positivity. Clean sheets, clean clothes, clean slate. 

I'm gonna try and do as much cleaning as I can manage over the course of the day. I've gotta sweep and mop the kitchen, and the microwave, I did the dishes already. Mop the bathroom and clean the counter. Maybe install the fucking bidet that's been sitting there for months???? But I think I'd need the water turned off and that's simply more trouble than I'm willing to put up with. 

Gotta vacuum, put the clothes away, do my hair. I don't feel overwhelmed by the day's tasks and I woke up at 1AM so I get literally all day. I'm drinking tea, actually remembered to use my reheating pad. Gone are the days where I somersault to the microwave to reheat my tea four thousand times an hour. I remembered to plug in one device. 

I don't remember what my resolution was last year, I think to try more with people? Take a chance? Something like that. This next year, I want to fail more. I want to write down (when will I learn) a list of things I really want to succeed at, and then set a goal number to fuck it all up. To try really hard and fail and just let that be okay. I can already feel my competitive streak stirring at the opportunity to _win_ at failing but if this is what I have to do to trick my brain into cutting me some slack, I'm all for it. 

For now, I'm safe, I'm doing good, everyone I love is safe, too. We made it to the end of a very painful year and I'm proud of all of us. If I don't have anything else to add throughout the day, happy new year. I'm glad you made it, too.

 **8:11 AM**

Listened to Be, great album, um disease had absolutely no right to deck me in the face like that. I _will_ be replaying it all day as I do these chores, fucking banger.

And then when I get tired, I'm gonna play Life Goes On. It's a beautiful song, makes me feel kind of soft. Haven't looked up the translations to anything but it's bangtan. They want me to thrive for whatever reason.

 **12:07 AM**

Didn't get everything done that I wanted to. I'm drunk right now, no strangers are all over me. I like this better than I liked last year's new years. No freezing outside a club for hours. No making myself flirt with a woman because I think the world is ending and I'd rather not die inexperienced. No blind drunk kisses with strangers; man, woman, etc. 

I traded shoes with my friend cuz her shoes were hurting her, though. For some reason, I remember that. And a guy let me balance my hand on his shoulder while I did it; after I asked. That was nice of him. 

No hickeys this year. I really get One throughout my entire dalliance on this bitch of an earth. I let one (1) man suck on my neck and the universe said That's Enough before absolutely shutting everything down. 

Nacho fries are finally back at taco bell. Can't wait to shove as many of those into my mouth as physically possible. Welcome to 2021. ♡


	77. Chapter 77

**December - nope. January 5, 2020 - NOPE 2021**

**8:30 PM**

I have purchased a baby elephant toy. Maybe it's an adult elephant, though. It's bigger than the smaller version. I had to travel to three different t*rgets to find it. I saw it last week and I 

**December - nope. January 6**

**2:00 PM**

Passed out talking about the plushie. I'm not usually a plushie person, never really understood the concept as a kid either. But I was in a t*rget last week and saw this one and after I picked it up, I knew it was mine. It's got a weight to it that calmed me instantly and it's almost half my size so I can actually hold it and feel like I'm holding something. 

Its eyes freak me out, though. I don't like eyes on things, and this one has these brown soulles eyes I constantly have to avoid. It's weird that they're brown and I would like to stop Seeing into them but it's not exactly like I can blindfold this elephant, that would be so much weirder.

I'll make eye contact with it and have to look away first or I become deeply unsettled. I can't believe I purchased a toy to bully me. I fell asleep holding it last night and when I awoke it had almost half of the bed. It's meant to stay in my reading cave anyway, but the sight of it looming over my head inches away from my face activated my fight or flight response. 

Every time I leave it in a chair, it fits in the entire chair, and I feel like it's trying to pick a fight with me. If it came to life and decided to beat my ass for using it as a contortionist's pillow, I don't think I would win. I am hostile to this toy and it may or may not return that sentiment. I sure wish I could be normal and let this plushie just be a plushie and not my nemesis. If I was the sort of person who sincerely gave things names, I would name it NemeSis. Sis for short.

Anyway, I got a shit ton done yesterday. And in the spirit of adult life, there's more to do, always and forever. Chores chores chores, errands errands errands. Phone call this, go sign that, pay for this, don't forget that, remember to eat, remember to sleep, blah blah blah. Winter adds a special layer of misery to it, too. I remembered to fill my tires and found that if I hadn't, eventually I would have blown it or something because there was less than half of the air it needed in there. 

And then enter the archaic practice of sexy bending or painful squatting as you press the freezing air pump nozzle directly to your tired little tire nipples. HA. Tired tires. I remembered to put gloves in my car and they came in handy - HA - for this task, but I do not keep them in my glove compartment. My glove compartment is for drive thru napkins and all my dumbass paperwork. Franz Kafka was right. Bureaucracy is piss. 

Speaking of piss, I also got wine. Well no, beer is piss, wine is demon piss. It's different. It took me out after two glasses like a pussy. I used to be so strong, 2020 really turned me into a lil bitch. Between the two of us, who's dead, though? Exactly. Bitch. 

What else, what else. The past six days have really zoomed by, 2021 has hit the ground running and I don't know where we're going. 

The Hoodie is a pretty lilac color. It's beautiful, huuuge improvement. I'm gonna use my godforsaken skillshare membership to learn to embroider and embroider the word NO ♡ on the hoodie. I'm in it right now. It felt like sandpaper, I had to layer it so that no part of it was touching my skin, but it's so cute. It's hiding every inch of me and the pastel is really making the gender jump out. That seems to be the formula to unlocking it: every single curve of my body *~*Erased*~* and throw in some cool tone pastel. Tadah. That's me in the mirror. What carnage I could cause with this knowledge. I won't, though. 

(Yet.)

It just started snowing. I love reminders that there's a world out there that isn't my same old boring self in this same old boring house. I would make tea but I'd get sad if it stopped snowing before I could finish it. 

I can't think of anything else I wanted to say. I got ethiopian food yesterday and one of the owners, a husband and wife, always says, "Why not see you? Long time," whenever I have enough money to get food. It was the wife yesterday, I like her more. They don't know I'm ethiopian and as lonely as it is standing there, surrounded by all these marks of a culture I didn't grow up with (music with lyrics I don't understand, names I can't pronounce, scents that are familiar but not my own, other customers who look at me like they could recognize me anywhere despite us never having met, clothes I wouldn't know how to wear. They had a xmas tree on the counter and the difference in our experiences as muslim and christian people ((ethiopia is a christian country)) could not be clearer. Like what does ethiopian santa look like? Me????? A horrifying concept on every level. Not to mention absolutely hilarious. I break into your home. I eat your anjera. I drink your milk directly from your goat's teets. I leave you The Items I psychically knew you wanted. Happy christmas.) 

So anyway I don't tell them I'm ethiopian. But when they wonder why they haven't seen me in a long time, it makes me feel like any other piece of culture in the restaurant. Like I'm there because I'm supposed to be. And all because of a simple greeting these people probably give to all the regulars they don't see in a while. Tragic.


	78. Chapter 78

**4:15 PM**

Ummm. Well. There's been an attempted coup. I_am_so_surprised_by_this_news. If_only_there_was_a_way_to_stop_this. 

Updates to follow I guess? This country simply refuses to start a year normally. Refuses.


	79. Chapter 79

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **warning for: nazis**

**December - god fucking dammit. January 7, 2020**

**12:46 AM**

Yeah the first thing I did was start cackling as hard as i possibly could upon seeing the coup pictures. 

Someone was dressed a viking. Another needed help scaling the wall dggjlljgffhkk I can't even type it without laughing. It's a shame nazis hate fags so much, I think they'd get along with us if they put all that foaming hatred aside for five minutes. 

The media is pretending to be shocked, what else is new. I feel absolutely no empathy for the government employees who greenlit this psychotic bullshit for all these years. They're going to go right back to doing nothing after this, just like they've done nothing leading up to this point. Just like they did nothing as protestors were horrifically brutalized right before their eyes, over and over again. 

It got so quiet there for a second. I really thought the maggots would just crawl back into their holes after their president was gone and call it a day. I don't know what I keep expecting. Rationality? Literally in this economy? 

**January 7, 2021**

**3:21 PM**

Passed out again. Anyway, the coup was disgusting to witness. I have to get a gun. I've been meaning to for a while now but you have to submit the paperwork to the sheriff's office and it's been ☆~Fascism☆~ over here for an entire year straight. Like no rest, full on fascism. And I don't know if it's the smartest thing to give a nazi cop my face, name, and address on a silver platter. It's not like it's a mystery what flavor of riffraff I am the second you glance at my ID. 

I also don't know if they'd sell me one at the gun stores???? Racists love to make any shopping experience as difficult for me as possible. Like one time, a store refused to cash a check for me because of "store policy" and when we were like what's the store policy, it was crickets. Even with my white passing friend with me. And that was before they all started putting on these public displays of lunacy. 

Not to mention that the shooting range I was going to practice with is just fully and openly a nazi meeting group. I should have known, from the 88 on their logo, but like I really am not thinking as much about nazis as they are about me. That's the real unrequited love right there. 

Anyway. Those are the updates, with crusts still in my eyes. I live in hell. I should put warnings about the nazis in the notes for this.


	80. Chapter 80

**January 8, 2020**

**4:17 PM**

Day two post coup. More like coo coo. 

Just laying here, in my quiet room. Wish more people had talked about how fucking mundane everyday life is while you live through historical events. I'm convinced people during wartimes just sat there on quiet days and were like.....well. This is really boring. And then the next day, faced some absolute madness. 

And then the day after that, said well. It's boring again. 

I wonder if I should be doing pushups. I won't. But I wonder if I should. 

I finally did unemployment. It took two hours. I forgot how confusing everything is on there, they word shit deliberately so you barely understand what you're ticking. Probably so that later they can start foaming at the mouth about fraud. Disgusting. 

Put more books in my bookshelf. The warm toned books go in the living room, the cool toned ones in here. Never thought I'd find so much satisfaction monopolizing the entire color spectrum. 

OH I've ordered a beaded curtain that looks like a bookshelf!!!! It's going to go over the closet door so that when I walk through, I go into my reading hole. I'm vibrating out of my skin, I'm so excited about it. It was expensive as all hell but it's a price I was willing to pay for a portal to another dimension. 

The serotonin that that alone is going to give me might knock me completely unconscious and I'm Ready. Ooh I'm so ready. America don't fold like a burrito before my beaded curtain arrives challenge. Let me know true happiness for a moment of my life you musty bitch. 

I've started leaving notes for myself in this box (out of the way of direct sunlight). I don't think I can do blind encouragement as a means of self care - self hype? - because the words just don't register. They don't land in the old bone dome. So instead, I'm doing practical notes, tangible notes. Here's an example. 

_I'm brushing your hair for you. I'm being careful. It's taking a long time. I'm not going to stop. I love you._

There's really nothing for me to argue with there. Everything I wrote was the truth. I'm forcing myself to write the I Love Yous at the end because....well. That's probably why I was being gentle with my hair. Because I love me. And if I love me already, then the thing I have to work on is understanding that, not creating it from thin air. It's a real, practical place to start. 

Speaking to myself in the third person also helps me bridge the disconnect between my mind and body. If they can't be one, then in the spaces in between, there can be love. There should be love. There is love. 

For the first time in weeks, I woke up and didn't crave my person. It's been a wild ride, wanting someone near me and with me so much. A feeling I'm not used to. I'd picture them in every corner of my room, with me, and not only did the idea not make me break out in hives, I yearned for it. I yearned for them, specifically, I wanted them, specifically. 

I wondered when the hell that feeling would pass for something that I put to bed two months ago. It turns out my brain just needed to forget what it felt like to be around them. I've never felt such an inexplicable draw to someone before, so I couldn't exactly ignore all of that, but the more time I have away from them, the harder it is to remember that feeling. 

As it fades, I catch my mind trying to mock me for the soulmate conclusion. I don't know when the fuck I'll learn to respect my own feelings, because this sucks. I'm not stupid. Why can't ME get that. 

I think it's because I can't prove feelings. Somewhere along the line, it got embedded in me that the only experiences or observations I have that are worth sharing are ones I can prove. Otherwise no one believes me. Otherwise no one respects me. 

The friends I've told about this, except for one, all think it's stupid when I call this person my soulmate. They think it's quarantine loneliness or horniness or both, but loneliness is a familiar, almost comfortable feeling to me. It's safer than risking rejection with people. It's safer than taking a chance on a feeling only you have access to. Doing this was incredibly hard and I've kicked myself for it enough as is. I really don't need extra help. 

When I'm feeling less touchy about this, I'm going to have to ask them to respect this thing. To let it be confusing and irrational and deeply personal to me. I won't have any explanation for why it means so much, just that they have to respect me anyway. And because they're good friends, I think they will. 

I envy people who have free and shameless access to their emotions. People who cry easily, like Jungkook or Hoseok. I adore their sensitivity. I think it's a beautiful thing. I want to be more like that and still be confident enough that if someone sees me crying and decides I'm worthless, I continue crying anyway. 

How backwards, when I think about it. Our brains have centers just for emotions. How do I expect to function if I keep trying to shut down parts of my brain? What sense would it make to do that to any other part of it? Didn't they call them lobotomies? When they erased literal access to the frontal lobe? Why won't I let my amygdala do its job? My hippocampus? HELLO?????? 

"What that hippocampus do?" Nothing, I won't let it. 

??????????

Yeah lemme just refuse to use the right side of my brain forever, too, since I'm committed to this embarrassing ass bit of mine. That makes sense. So rational, look at me, I'm the emperor of rationality. 

Goodbye. I'm embarrassed to be a person. 

(Again.)


	81. Chapter 81

**January 14, 2020**

**11:49 AM**

There's a thought that won't leave me. I'd like to write it down before I forget it.

I think a person is a part of the universe that's trying to evolve itself through sentience. I think the universe created us to know what it feels like to be loved. I think...the universe is trying to love itself, and the best way it knows how is to create pieces of itself that are as breakable as we are. When a human being is cruel to another, that's why we know it's wrong. When a human being is cruel to you, that's why you know. 

I don't have anything else to say today. It's snowing outside. I'm going to wear a big coat and thick socks. To protect the layer of cosmos that covers me from head to toe. 

I hope the universe knows I love it. I'm trying my hardest. 


	82. Chapter 82

**January 11, 2021**

**6:58 PM**

Building's fire alarm going off. Probably some kids smoking weed in the stairwell again. I did my obligatory peak out of the door, sniff the air twice and Look for smoke. I'm in my nook holding my stupid elephant, buzzed off some wine. 

It's quieter in here than the rest of the apartment, I'm such a genius. I could close the closet door but what if the big stomping fire men knock on my door and break it down if there's no answer and I just have to live with no front door until the building fixes it? Absolutely not. 

Today was soooooooo productive. Knick knacks drive me insane, I don't remember if I've mentioned it already. Just a thousand tiny things laying around with places to go. But they're so small that hunting down their home feels like a waste of energy. So they pile up, polluting every surface area available until I can barely distinguish one from the other without concentrating very very hard. 

For example, I've found one thousand bobby pins and hair ties. I would not have found them if I was looking for them, so every time I found more, I had to stop everything I was doing and put them in their correct place. Rinse and repeat with pens, MY FIFTEEN LIPSTICKS FOR SOMEONE WHO DOESN'T EVEN WEAR MAKEUP?????, my notebooks, my crafts garbage, etc etc etc. Just all day running around in servitude to tiny things. Arietty wants what I have. 

... The alarm is still going off, is this the end? Better go check i guess. 

**7:14 PM**

Yeah still don't smell or see anything. Alarm still screaming. Me too, bitch, you're not special. 

Anyway, I've cleaned A Lot over the last few days. Nothing on the ground. I've hung up my garland and filled my bedroom bookshelf - omfg. I found these battery operated star lights at t*rget when I was there and wrapped them around the bookshelf and hung a lantern on the bottom shelf. It looks magical. When my bookshelf beaded curtain arrives, it's over. It's lights out. I will kill depression once and for all. Oh you're sad? Part these beaded curtains and see how long that lasts.

Oh I have to pee, one s - and Now they shut off the alarm. Perfect timing.

 **7:40 PM**

I'm back. Was very very sad today, but I also woke up at like 8pm yesterday and haven't slept since. Hence the wine. Sometimes it feels like I could stay up for days and days and days if I let myself; if I didn't somehow crumble before then. I got veeery sleepy around 2 o'clock but it was merely The Hottest Time of Day, if I went to bed then, it would only send my chaotic schedule into further disarray. So I made me stay up. And would you look at that, I might get to go to sleep before midnight. It's the little victories, really. 

Feels like I had more to say but I guess not. Ummmm nine days until inauguration. At this point, I'm anticipating an assassination attempt on joey's life. Shit is so tense yet so lax at the same time. Are they really going to let the mob of white embarrassments get away with this twice? 

If I d*e before this curtain arrives I will be very upsetti spaghetti.

 **January 12, 2020**

**3:49 AM**

Roommate woke me from my wine coma to ask if I was going to evacuate the building because....the fire alarm is still going off. 

The fire fighters came.....saw that there was no fire......and then left the alarm on. On a monday night. Where people have to go to work the next day. In a building full of exhausted moms and _babies_. Because they got annoyed by a bunch of traumatized kids who probably don't have a place to smoke at home who do it in the stairwells to cope with the world. 

....Do you see? How time and again, I'm expected to sympathize and empathize with trump supporters uwu but white people can't drudge up an iota of empathy when it comes to the negroids? Do you see how we're told, in a _thousand_ different ways, that our humanity cannot be found? Will never be found. Until we reach the life or death moment. When it all plays out how they were meant to. 

I hate talking about racism. I hate thinking about racism. It's fucking exhausting and I've been more than exhausted for a long time now. I have shit to do. A life to live or some fucking shit. And then here come white people, loud as fuck, interjecting themselves into my life just to try to ruin it in whatever small way they can. It's not easy being a small business owner, but who will torment the blacks if you don't? 

I'm going to finish the rest of that wine. Hopefully it'll be enough to knock my pussy ass out again. I'm gonna start black sails. I hope it's good enough to get my mind off the essential, unvaccinated workers in this building who are gonna have the shittiest fucking day tomorrow. Thank fuck I don't have work. Thank shit and fuck.


	83. Chapter 83

**January 13, 2021**

**4:58 AM**

Fingers pruned from doing the dishes. And cleaning the stove and the inside of the microwave. My lower back started to hurt too much to keep standing so the stove isn't as spotless as I like. It's driving me insane. I'm trying to let it go. It doesn't have to be pristine, it can just be clean. I can let it go. I have to let it go. 

This is giving me insight into why I'm so obsessed with perfection. If something isn't done to the absolute best of my ability, I don't want to interact with it at all. I can't be happy with it at all. I can't be proud of it at all. And it's a really really shitty feeling. To be so ready and willing to declare myself worthless. To be unable to see value in incomplete or imperfect things. 

I think I I apply this to other areas of life, too. I won't drink lukewarm tea. If I can't vacuum the entire apartment, I won't vacuum just one room. If I'm not ready to have hours long conversations, I won't text my friends first. I won't reply for the same reason. If I don't have nice hair, I won't bother with a nice outfit. If I'm not ready to get into a fight or lose them, I won't say when something someone does is bothering me.

I'm scared to get tattoos on the parts of my body prone to stretch marks, or discoloration. The acne scars and bug bite marks on my body are there forever, because that's how my body works. I mark easily but I wish I didn't. 

I've done a lot of work on my bedroom over the past few weeks. But the walls don't have the things I want on them up, and all the knickknacks aren't put away, and not all the clothes are where they're supposed to be, so it makes all the work I've done to now feel pointless. The things that are done, are beautiful, but the room itself isn't fished, so I barely care. I have february's rent, but I don't have march's, so it feels like I'm unprepared. 

I haven't been able to stand myself lately and this new stretch of self hatred makes those weeks where I actually liked myself feel far away and untouchable. 

This kind of thinking might be poison to my personhood. There is no point in my life where I will be perfect. There will always be work to do, always more life to live. Until there isn't. 

To change is to be alive. All I can do is try to be alive in the right direction. 

So. My kitchen is clean. Scratches, bumps and all. It is clean. 

I've done a good thing by making it clean.


	84. Chapter 84

**January 15, 2021**

**5:09 PM**

Just came out as nonbinary to my friends. It was....scarier than I expected it to be??? I've been so open and queer for so long that I didn't expect to be this sensitive about it. It would have really really hurt if they were, like, weird about it, but they weren't. I feel seen. It's terrifying but also really, really good. 

I'm nervous they'll have Questions about how I dress that'll bring into question My Identity. Like why I'm so feminine when we go to clubs, or why I'm feminine ever, and the answers are so convoluted. But straightforward. I don't want to answer any of them. I'm tired of all the words. 

I feel like a pokemon most of the time. Black, bisexual, blah blah blah. Oooh tell us tell us, your life as a minority. I'm tired. I'm just Zia. I'm just alive. I would like for that not to be a crime. That's really it.

 **January 16, 2021**

**11:17 AM**

Whoops, forgot yesterday happened. I had a bunch of thoughts as I bought M O R E B O O K S can you fucking believe my audacity after crooning on and on about finally putting all of the others away. Two of them I could have literally checked out of the library, how am I this dumb. 

Anyway, I was having thoughts all over the place post coming out. For some reason, this come out means a lot to me and everyone on earth is talking about trans people like they know two things and I just don't want to deal. Everybody shut up about gender, everybody shut up about everything. Just sshhh. 

I am in my Nonbinary Hoodie. It Is Good.


	85. Chapter 85

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> stupid idiot chronicles
> 
>  **warnings for: vomiting, passing references to sexual assault, drinking, hangovers, wreckless behavior in the pandemic** and I'm narrating naked from a bathtub for half of this so heads up.

**January 17, 2021**

**2:49 PM**

In the bathtub. Hungover worse than I have been in like years. Tried to have a guava juice. Unhad the guava juice all over my clean bathroom counter. Phone's at 10%. Using two extension cords to reach me in the tub and charge it. 

Smells like vomit in here. I have to be more responsible with these updates. I've picked a great time to do it, that's for sure. 

Went to my friend's apartment yesterday. Two people there I did not know. Two more people to either give covid to or get covid from. Imagine dying to hang out with a guy named cory. That was me last night. 

God I'm gonna -

**3:03 PM**

The great thing about being trapped in the bathroom is there's a toilet bowl to vomit in right there. Luxury. 

If I drop this fucking phone into this water I'm gonna drown myself. No, lemme get this extension cord away from this water and just use my phone at 9% until I'm done writing this. 

I think the soaking is helping. I'm not allowed to drink water or juice or eat or even suck on candy for this rancid breath because my stomach is trying to fix what I broke. Like a pissed off mom cleaning, it just kamehamehas anything in its vicinity it doesn't like. Including nothing. I'm tired of wretching. 

God this is really helping. What if I'm a fucking genius and something something buoyancy something. I only crawled in here to try and give my body a separate means of hydration since I'm not allowed to drink water without undrinking it. Like a frog. I think frogs drink water through their skin. But like faster than this. 

The gathering was okay. I had half a bottle of tequila and another bottle of liquor, 30% alcohol, something something, I don't remember. I keep forgetting I'm a wimp now. I can't just go around replacing all my blood with alcohol, I'll fucking perish. 

One sec.

**4:26 PM**

I went to v*mit and just like the last fifty times, there was nothing. And then I flipped in the water onto my stomach and found Relief for the first time since I woke up. So I stayed like that until the water started to get too cold. 

Side note, I find it endlessly ridiculous that a simple body of water can circumvent the impact of the entire earth's gravity on my body. Gravity can bring a building down if it's got a wonky support beam but if I lay still in a tub of water it's quiet??? Ain't no back talk???? No wonder every scientist is mad. Every last one. 

I think I'd make a good scientist. I'm fine being mad but I can't remember anything, math is witchcraft, and if one more man sexually assaults me in the this lifetime it'll be the last thing his cock ever does. I hear the science departments have a cock problem. If only we could come up with a formula on how not to rape someone. 

God, I'll have to warn for all that too. Sorry if I've just said shit on here without warning and it's triggered you. I get that we're signing a certain social contract regarding this public diary, but in trying to document an honest experience of my life, I still need to handle you - the reader - better. 

I'd go back and warn for the past chapters but I can't stand reading this. It makes me cringe and hate myself so much I want to delete the whole thing. I hope you can understand. There's only so much of being seen I can take. 

Anyway. I'll have to try this soaking thing the next time I liquify my organs. I feel so much better. I can't tell if it's merely the passage of time or if I'm onto something. Uh oh, phone's at 4%. Gotta save this before it dies on me but then I'll have to add the html if I have more to say. Ugh.

 **5:17 PM**

P. Crocodile > crocodile >. Whatever. I've had an epiphany I think. 

I think what I'm trying to do here is unwatch myself. Get rid of the imaginary audience in my head by speaking the truth about myself. Even if I don't like it. Even if I don't think anyone else will like it. I'm trying to do something I think is cringey and let myself do it anyway. 

Nauseous again. Time to soak stomach down and see if it goes away.

 **5:34 PM**

Not the fire alarm. Do I....get out? What if it's an actual fire for once? What, they're just gonna find me face down in this bathtub? They open my unlocked phone and see this draft? What I was up to? The moment leading up to my demise? This very sentence here? 

And then? Do they post it? I think they should post it. Hey y'all, post it. I for one think it would make for a very very funny news article. Someone gets curious and finds the rest of these chapters. Do they contact the news folk and ask them to use my proper pronouns? Do they accidentally out me to my mother. 

"They died as they lived. Face - 

Oh okay, it's been shut off. Well. I'll just carry on, then.

 **6:42 PM**

Opened my bathroom door after taking a shower and walked into the absolute abyss. It took me a minute to realize that the sun went down and none of the lights were on. 

I'm vibrating but I can stand. I scrolled back up to see when I got in the water and it's been four hours. 

I bought a citrus soda from a local japanese store, but I left it in the car. I'm dying of thirst. No I won't drink water. 

I'm gonna have to go downstairs and grab it.

 **6:57 PM**

I'm back. I've taken One Sip. I feel like I'm having a duel with my own stomach. Did I shoot first or did it.

 **January 18, 2021**

**8:40 AM**

I live. 

About to have some food for the first time in two days. I've had two mason jars of water. Lemme see if this thing has a measurement. 

Two pints of water. And two of those citrus sodas. I'm about to try the guava juice again, let's see if I can keep it down. 

I'd like to say something. If you're angry to hear that I went to a gathering this deep into a pandemic, you have the right to be. If you've lost someone to covid or have gotten covid despite doing everything right, I'm sorry. I'm not trying to make light of your suffering by documenting my dumbass choices. I'm just trying to be honest. Whatever that looks like. If it helps, I haven't gone anywhere else since school closed. I wear a mask, I wash my hands, I don't eat out, etc. If it helps. 

I do have to note something else. It felt good to say fuck it and just go to that gathering. Weirdly good. I think I've had some insight into a different reason why people in this country have been so....defiant? About this epidemic. Even people who know better. 

There is no question that the fact we've all been forced to go to work and pay rent is a violation of our human rights. I want you to understand that not only have we been criminally neglected, we've also been placed in direct danger, on purpose, despite us all being aware that it could cost us our lives. I think, with that on the table, there's something addictive about feeling like you're taking control of your life yourself. Your right to live or die. 

If most of us are being forced to be exposed to this thing one way or another anyway, then having it be on our terms doesn't make us feel so much like we're being abused. It can feel powerful. That's how I felt. Powerful. Even though, at the end of the day, it's simply a different kind of self harm. 

I don't know if I'm onto something here, but those are my thoughts for now. I'm nervous about posting this update, but maybe that's the same reason I'll have to. Wish me luck with this rice.

 **1:04 PM**

I have been granted the right to ingest rice. I am indebted to my stomach for this great honor. I shant fuck around with hard liquor for another while after this. I am deeply sorry. 

I'm stil nauseous. I'm gonna try and drink this tea and keep drinking water. Hopefully I'll be back to normal tomorrow - IN TIME TO GO TO FUCKING WORK????? WHAT THE FUCK. 

I completely forgot about my indentured servitude. Wow. Wow wow wow. 

I mean. It's not like I have anything better to do. I wrote and posted my self indulgent thing. Tried a different writing style. I think I did okay, for the complete amateur I am at writing. It might come as a surprise to some of you here, but I don't want to be a writer. I just want to tell stories, I just want there to be certain stories in the world. The written word is just the best tool I have right now. 

I haven't posted anything new in a while. It's not getting traction and it's disappointing, but that's just how it is sometimes. I think I got arrogant there for a second. Overall, and glad this story exists. So many others don't ever get written. I guess that could be a metaphor for these entries, too. 

Two days from inauguration. It's either going to proceed as normal or it's going to be yet another traumatizing event for us to live through. 

Oh shit it's martin luther king day. It's too bad he got murdered like that. I'm glad we all get the day off to think about that. 

Gonna clean the vomit up eventually. The real question becomes how long can I live with a mess of vomit in my bathroom before I fucking clean it? What new things can I learn about myself this 2021? 

PS: Watching a show about pirates on pirate ships with shaky cam when you're nauseous and hungover is the greatest idea ever.


	86. Chapter 86

**January 19, 2021**

**11:36 AM**

My near death experience has inspired me to finally vacuum this apartment. And sweep. Hopefully, I'll get to the mopping before the turn of the century. We are not going to talk about the v*m*t in the bathroom, I know I'm the one who told you but mind your business. 

The thing no one tells you about phone calls is that you often have to return that call, to the same goddamned number, about the same godforsaken issue, until it gets resolved. And the longer and more excruciating the phone calls are, and depending on how the issue gets resolved ie my fist fight about the internet, you might develop a certain kind of hesitance to resume the dalliance the next time you have to make a phone call about something. I wouldn't call it ptsd by any stretch of the imagination, but it certainly is....something. 

So I don't want to. But I have to, before I go in to work, otherwise I'll be forced to dwell on this again tomorrow. And tomorrow is wednesday. Wednesday is an awful day to try and do anything. 

Have to remember to get leave in conditioner, too. I couldn't find any last time and the store stressed me out, I hate shopping. Can't focus on anything. 

I think I'm gonna try and do eye makeup today. I can't draw eyeliner to save my life but I do have a fun green eyeshadow. I think it's a creamy eyeshadow. So not as much of that horrific rubbing on the eyelids as I'd need to do otherwise.

 **3: 00 PM**

IF OLD MEN DON'T GET THEIR WET GUMS THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME - 

THEY THINK I'M GONNA FUCK THEM? IS THAT IT? I'M GONNA DROP TO THE GROUND AND OPEN MY FUCKING LEGS FOR THEM? I'M WEARING 84 LAYERS AND A 4XL HOODIE FOR THEM? SO THEY CAN STARE AT MY ASS? IS THAT MY FUCKING MOTIVATION HERE? 

OF COURSE NOT. OF COURSE IT ISN'T. THEY DON'T THINK I'M GONNA FUCK THEM. NO ONE IN THE WORLD WOULD BE MORE SURPRISED THAN THEM IF I FUCKED THEM. THEY JUST ENJOY MAKING WOMEN UNCOMFORTABLE IN PUBLIC FOR THE THRILL OF IT. FUCKING BASTARDS. 

Oooh I hope he tries to put his hands on me I am not above punting an old man into the sun. Fucking bitch.

 **6:56 PM**

Used the last of my bicycle refund to get ramen today. Delicioso. 

I have a migraine or something, I honestly can't tell. I'm like floaty and far away and possibly nauseous. Staring at this screen is difficult. 

I've been getting up at like 6am the past few days, which has worked out perfectly because I actually feel sleepy at night. I'm trying to put off taking any sleeping pills as long as I can. Especially with my stomach all raw from my most recent round of fuckshit. 

In the interest of trying to be more responsible on here, please do not take as many sleeping pills as I take. I don't take painkillers aside for period cramps and I'm not on any medication, but I can really fuck up my stomach lining if I keep taking the wrong dosage. I get pretty bad ulcers so I have to stop whenever I start getting fucking wreckless, and of course there's the risk of an accidental overdose. Our bodies are not the same, just because I've figured out some sort of compromise doesn't mean you should push your body to the same limits. If you suffer from insomnia too, I'm sorry. I know it fucking sucks. 

I'm gonna turn all the lights off now and see if that helps with my head. Gonna set alarms for the phone call with my friend later. I'll have to give her a heads up that I might be out cold by the time she's ready to talk but we can reschedule. 

It was good seeing the kids today. I really missed them. For a second there I completely forgot I have work? That I am needed someplace else? To perform labor???? It was so bright outside. 

One more day until inauguration. I am now back to the version of the simulation where life is going on as normal and I'm not trapped inside hearing it all fall apart from my living room. I don't know if I can call this change of scenery refr - 

Fuck me. I never made the phone call.


	87. Chapter 87

**January 20, 2021**

**6:25 AM ******

********

********

Oh boy 6AM. I'm going strong.

 **12:32 PM**

On the phone with my long distance friend. Listening to her talk about her partner is making me wonder if I understand a single thing about people at all. Not that I was the library of human experience before this conversation but god. Nobody makes sense to me. Having a few realizations but I'll save them for after. 

**1:43 PM**

After a long enough time, I think loneliness becomes a skill. Doing things by yourself takes practice. Knowing that if you can't fix or solve something by yourself, it doesn't get fixed or solved, is a tough pill to swallow. But I think I want to unswallow it. 

I don't have any experience being held, but I don't want to become a difficult person to hold. I don't have a lot of experience talking about my life but I don't want to be a difficult person to know. I don't know what it means to be in love, but when love arrives, I want to open the door. Even if it's a heavy door. Even if I'm stark naked behind it and I haven't cleaned. 

It's going to take so, so much practice. I'm gonna fuck it up so many times. I'm gonna feel so ugly and so stupid. Probably like I shouldn't have bothered in the first place. Probably like my loneliness made more sense anyway. 

But I'm too close to the edge, I think. If I take anymore steps back, I won't remember what it means to reach for another person's hand. I'll forget how to speak altogether, I won't know how to ask someone to stay. And I know it would be a terrible shame. There are so many beautiful people in the world. Beautiful in ways I could never even imagine. 

I have to keep my stupid little stick in that stupid fucking doorway. I have to let that tiny sliver of light in. I have to. 

I have a friend who loves me very, very much. I'm very happy that we met. She's my soulmate, too: when we met, we knew that we were going to be friends. And so it was. 

I'm glad that she held her door open for me. I'm glad that she's different from me in that regard. I have so much to learn from her. 

**8:41 PM**

Kitchen mopped! Kitchen fucking mopped!!!!!!! Stupid fucking kitchen fucking mooooooopppeddd. 

Unwinding in my nook with the elephant plushie that secretly plots my murder. Sleepy as all fuck for 9pm. I can't wait to go to sleep. I can't wait to wake up at 6AM again and see the world brighten. This is my ideal sleeping schedule. I'm in heaven. 

Practiced how not to be unalone today. I hate small talk and that applies to my tiny passengers, I literally love when we all shut the fuck up. My middle schoolers were loud today, they don't know I almost died four days ago. 

But anyway anyway, I did something new. When my elementary school kids got on, I said, "It's so good to see you. I've missed you guys so much." 

Felt weird, very embarrassing. But I'm going to keep doing it. 

I have notifications from the group chat to catch up on and I shall simp for them also. The gaggle of gays who've survived a fascist with me. Joseph lives. We, as a nation, are now free from the super gonorrhea. Let us Fuck once more. 

And by fuck I do mean get human beings some human rights. 

Okay. Time to quickly scroll through this and see if I said anything I might need to warn for. 

Wow I really will just say whatever I want huh. I can't believe this is public. Post.


	88. Chapter 88

**January 22, 2021**

**12:32 PM**

Get this january out of my sight. It's taking too long. Though where I want to go, I couldn't tell you. February? Absolutely not. 

I went to bed at two this morning and woke up at like 11. Yesterday was 8. These are still morning times and I still went to bed naturally and woke up before work so I'm still a fucking winner. I got worried when I was still awake at--NO IT WAS 4AM. I went to bed at 4am and thought it was fucking over. But then it wasn't. And now it's friday so I don't have to force myself to get up over the next few days. I think I should though, to keep my momentum. We'll see. 

I'm finally drinking out of the octagon cup. It's weighted perfectly for my tiny gremlin hands and the corners make it easier to take a sip out of. I still feel A Way about it, but I hope that feeling passes. It's a neat cup.

I've left every errand in the world to today. Big miss steak. Gotta remember to grab the garbage on my way out. It always takes me longer to replace the bag inside the trash can. Probably because taking the trash out of the canister is a two step process proceeding my exit. Replacing the bag is just going to throw something away and then coming face to face with your errors as you behold the naked, quivering bin before you. 

I've decided I'm going to shave my head so I can get scalp tattoos. The next time I grow my hair out, I don't plan on cutting it, so if I want my head tats it's now or never. With the reign of canoli banoli, I can be ugly mostly in private as it grows back. And then as I develop my bald spots and what have you over the years I can be like hey, that's my tattoo in there, hello. It's going to be my favorite secret. 

I'll have to do more research to see if I could possibly permanently damage my hair follicles with a tattoo, but unless something goes very wrong, I doubt it. God I'm so excited. I'm gonna have to start saving for it now, and in the meantime, consult with the new tattoo artist I've found to see if she can do it. Like does she have any prior experience with scalps? Does the dandruff jump out as soon as the needle touches the boiled egg?

I'm gonna present the smoothest, baldest surface for her. I'm gonna exfoliate the living shit out of my head. It's gonna be healthier than it's ever been. Even baby me could never. I had a buzz cut for five years before I decided to grow my hair out, but I've never been bald bald. It's certainly gonna be different. 

And I'm not doing a mohawk next time so it'll all grow in at the same time. The sides are finally at shoulder length and I'm doing them dirty again. But I'm gonna bring down the rest of my hair to meet their length and see how it all looks in a bob before I bring in edward scissorhands. Meet-cute: bob and edward. 

It's been a fun three years. I've enjoyed all the colors. Blue was my favorite. Blue Is, Unexpectedly, The Warmest Color. I'm gonna get some orange in here before I say goodbye and start over. I hope it fades to peach by the time I'm cutting it. A curly peach bob. What a nice thought. 

Okay. I'm gonna go eat now. I found samosas in the freezer that I forgot existed and now they're in my fermented bean pasted stew. Let's hope they go together.


	89. Chapter 89

**January 23, 2021**

**3:56 PM**

It's snowing. It looks so pretty, it's making me happy. I only just got out of bed and went to make ginger tea in the microwave (blasphemy). And then I saw it was snowing and opened up the windows. The sun's going to go down in an hour and I won't get to watch the rest of it come down but this is going to be a lovely hour.

There's a bear tree in front of me - like naked from the winter not a tree shaped like a bear - that I love looking at. It's huge and has a few broken branches and it's beautiful. The earth is shaped like a human heart. It's not a perfect globe, it's bumpy and misshapen and it's trying its best. 

I've always thought that trees looked like the valves or its tubes or whatever they're called. Just a living thing bartering carbon and oxygen with the rest of the universe. Alone but alive. In the distance, the branches look like clawed hands in the snow. 

Today is another mundane day. I'm probably going to watch something on netflix after this. I've gotten to the end of season 1 of black sails and I'm too stupid to know what's going on but I've heard it gets better so I'll try again. 

I made pasta last night so I'm having that today. I'm probably gonna try and write again. Weird how I'm able to write more easily now that there isn't a stupid fuck fascist holding office. How To Motivate Yourself To Write: Well....It's Gonna Take About Four Years Of--

Today is a good day is what I'm trying to say. It's a good day.


	90. Chapter 90

**January 26, 2021 (how many januaries could one january possibly contain)**

**11:24 PM**

I have so much to say. I want to tell them I'm sorry. I wasn't ready the first time we met and what I felt scared me. I want to say that I thought about coming back a hundred times over the past three years. And I want to say that I'm sorry it took the near unraveling of our world to pluck up the courage. 

I want to tell them I'm happy they've stayed alive long enough for us to meet. I got the sense that they've lived a challenging life. I know how much work it takes to try being gentle in a world like this. I want to tell them I'm fiercely proud of those hands, the ones that barely touched me. I want to tell them that I would have given them the permission to touch me, though. 

And I wanted the chance to thank them. For changing me. For teaching me that I need gentleness above all else. For bringing something out of a person like me, something I did not think existed. For showing me how much I care for myself and showing me that I could choose myself. Even given the choice between same old me and someone as beautiful as them. Every second where I wanted to text them - and didn't - that hurt like hell - were precious seconds where I chose myself. I just wanted to say thanks for that. 

The universe has continued to laugh at me. Tortured me with imagery about astronauts and scuba divers. A key chain I found in my pocket that I didn't buy with them in mind but now I can't look at without thinking about them. The same painting in their studio that I randomly saw weeks after my confession in a crafts store. Their really specific artist pseudonym popping up on my screen as I use social media. The tattoo of an astronaut and a scuba diver I've known I wanted to get for five years. 

I never wanted a job growing up. I never had a career aspiration in mind. This capitalist nightmare was a real kick to the teeth when I realized what world I live in, but for a brief moment, in fourth grade, I thought about it. I had to create a speech and the only thing I could think I liked was astronauts. And the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to be one. 

And then my fickle little mind immediately dropped the issue when I realized I couldn't breathe in space. Of the ways to go, asphyxiating might be number one on my no list. But I remember that feeling. Of wanting something new for a genuine moment in my life. Maybe that's the real lesson here. The real symbolism. That I will never be an astronaut. That I just like breathing too much. And if that's the case, I think I like this lesson best. I've been sending the universe straight to voicemail but maybe all along, it was just trying to explain itself. 

I think it is a very human thing to search for meaning. And I think that says more about our condition than any answer we might ever find. 

God. 

You know, I wasn't wearing makeup or anything the first time we met. I still wore a religious scarf too, and it was underneath a beanie and for all they knew, I was bald. Or muslim. Or both. And like.... yeah. I was. And I was dressed like shit, per always. Amorphous blob, not yet aware why I was so committed to the amophity. 

I thought they were cute, but I think lots of people are cute all the time. The panini has made this particularly proclivity worse, I find myself adoring mysterious strangers in their mysterious little masks more than ever. And seeing hot people in public? I used to think I might be asexual but uhhhh. Perhaps I was mistaken. 

So anyway, I pulled up my jeans and presented my dusty little calf. And I asked them to be gentle with me because it was my first time and I flinched before the needle hit my skin and I immediately realized that it was a perfectly bearable pain. I've gotten piercings in Choice places in my ears that hurt about a hundred times worse and I was relieved that it didn't feel like that. 

Side note, my body has rejected almost every last piercing I ever had. I can't tell you how much of a betrayal that is. Spiritually, I'm covered in piercings and they're all gold. Physically, I can only wear one gold earring at a time in either of my lobes because two make me look too feminine. But one earning says I'm Gay and I'm Pirate, and yes, those two things are true about me. Where was I, I keep getting distracted.

Right, so I look like a muppet and they've seen my i.d. so they know I'm muslim. Not racist, not islamophobic. The bar is in hell but I'm not the one who put it there. 

They're very quiet as they do my tattoo and I figure they're just a quiet person. My best friend and I are just chatting and then they mention that they like how we are together. It sticks with me. Anytime I'm close to someone, the people around us know that we're close, and it's always meant a lot to me. I don't think I express my love very well, but the fact that people can tell who my friends or family are just because of how I interact with them....yeah. It means a lot. 

As we're talking, they interject here and there, and it's easy. I don't remember what it felt like sitting there but I remember thinking that they seemed like a strangely careful person. A bit weird, too. There was a drawing they had up that reminded me of Morph from Treasure Planet and because that's one of my favorite movies of all time (because of course it is), it stuck with me. I found it intriguing that for a bare bones studio they'd just moved into, that would be one of the few things they had up on their walls. 

They cautioned me about how to take care of my skin. With a sincerity that told me they'd heard and believed me when I told them that I was new to tattoos and they didn't judge me for it. They told me what soap to use, how often, and maybe I'm just an abused little fag, but I felt taken care of. And as a self aware, abused little fag, I knew then, too, that I'd taken a liking to them because they were being gentle with me. 

Then they warned me about what happens when you don't take care of yourself right and pointed to a raised little scar on their bicep. And...I think I touched it. God I don't remember anymore. But I think I did. I remember staring at it, and then looking up at them. I think I was asking for permission and I think they gave it to me. I wish I remembered how it felt. 

All I remember now is that I had been completely taken in by them. I've lived on two continents, three different countries, five different cities, gone to nine different schools, had eleven different jobs, met hundreds of people, from dozens and dozens of backgrounds. I've had crushes, been crushed on, been in situationships, been obsessed with the idea of people, have had people do the same thing to me. I've met so many people. None of them made me feel the way that this person did. 

Ummmm so I fucking left. It freaked me out, that kind of reaction to a complete stranger. I wasn't anywhere near the realm of ready to explore what it meant. And I didn't like the idea of falling in love. It might sound strange, but I always thought it was beneath me. I thought that love was a fool's errand and I wasn't interested in donning the clown costume. I'd decided that all the art in the world throughout history and today was based mostly in emotional delusion. Grown from the same desperate, lonely thing inside me that wants this all to mean something. That wants my survival to have meant something. 

And then I met them - and immediately realized that I could actually fall in love with someone - and they could be standing right in front of me - and that like me and like them - love was a breathing thing sitting between us - and unlike me - it was screaming to be touched. And it freaked me out. 

So I said nothing and did nothing. I thought about them everytime I cleaned my tattoo. I thought that was all that that experience was going to be and I was prepared to let it. .

Then I went back to that same parlor to get more tattoos. It had been a year and I thought enough time had passed for them to forget about me. I thought I could keep my longing to myself and let it be one sided. So I didn't bother them and waited for the first available artist to do the simple line work. And while we were waiting, they walked past us - have I told this story already???? Apologies if I have, I don't remember. 

I didn't notice because I was on my phone. My friend told me that they'd stopped to say hi but I didn't see them. I felt bad for not looking up and my stomach twisted into knots when I realized that they remembered me. I felt so disappointed that I couldn't say hi. 

Then they came back inside. 

They asked if they'd done my tattoo in the past. I nodded enthusiastically because they'd come all the way back in and I didn't want to make them feel stupid for it. And then they sort of tripped over themself to come and take a look at it and I was dusty once aGAIN as ALWAYS and wearing stockings so I had to roll down my stocking like we were in a fucking victorian romance novel and let them look at my skin. 

They didn't touch me, but holy fuck, it almost felt like they had. I stared at their pretty ass face and they told me it looked like it healed good and I don't remember what happened in between but when they left, I knew. I just knew.

Uh. But then I still didn't do anything. I have no experience with romantic endeavors whatsoever, blah blah blah, a million other things, et cetera. And then a year and a half after that, the earth said OOP? And I thought to myself.... lemme take my inexperienced ass over there and fucking say something before I die, _fuck_. Which brings us here. 

I'm typing all this because I wore stockings today and as I was rolling them down, got hit with the memory of laying on their table, after they'd given me my latest tattoo. They asked to see my fucking calf - just saw it off already - and I had to roll down my stocking to show them but I almost asked them to do it themself!! My audacity????? 

Imagine my state if they'd rolled down my stocking with those godforsaken hands. All slow and gentle as you like. Respectful and shit. Imagine the state of me. Imagine the state of these logs then. If you think I've talked too much about this already, imagine me after a victorian stripping. 

I would not be typing this civilized. I might never have walked away with this smallest morsel of my dignity. I might have begged them to touch me. And then what would become of me? How would I cope after we'd reached this same ending? Would I be coping well? Would I have gone these three months without a peep, bo or otherwise? 

I think my primary love language might be physical touch. This - for reasons you already know, others you've sussed out, and others you will never have context for - is yet another joke by god at my expense. Because I can't have piercings. And I can't have cats (dander allergy). And I can't let people touch me without years long pretext. Yak it up. 

I swear I better fall in love with every single tattoo artist I meet from here on out. I've met a few so far, all of them beautiful, all of them sweet. None of them have stayed on my mind the way mine did. But maybe I'm not trying hard enough to imprint on the versions of these other people that live in my head. I'll try harder.


	91. Chapter 91

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **warning for: depression**

**February 3, 2021**

**11:15 AM**

Been full of hatred these past two weeks. Disgust, malcontent. Ill will. Malice. Misanthropy. Malaise. Just oozing every time I left the quiet of my home. Very easily irritated. 

The days are blending together. The shortened hours are demoralizing. I care for nothing. I've tried rearranging my bed to see if that would spark a bit of satisfaction in my brain. It has not. My beaded curtain has yet to arrive and I'm afraid I won't give a single fuck when it finally does. 

We're fully back to school, too. I guess they couldn't help themselves. They had to try infecting as many students, staff, and faculty as they could before any of us got the vaccine. I've seen kids in person that I haven't seen for months. Now they get the same chance to contract the virus and die as the rest of their peers. Must be a really great middle school experience.

 **February 6, 2021**

**4:53 PM**

Aaaaand we're in a pit of depression. 

I feel like I should have seen it coming, but I always expect more health from myself than I actually have. More effort, more productivity, more more more. I think I'm trying to convince myself that if I've tried absolutely everything and still nothing is okay, then I must really not be okay. 

It's a shit standard, I'll tell you that right now. I can't keep running myself into the ground to prove shit to myself. It's painful but I can't stop. I have to feel like I've earned my sorrow. And then when I feel sorrowful I act surprised. ????? 

I don't know what balance to strike. I either have to do everything perfectly or not at all. Like right now for example. I'm doing laundry but I don't care because I have dishes piling up. I've been to work early but I didn't care because it wasn't early enough to charge for overtime. Even though ten extra minutes every day is almost two hours of lost pay per pay period. 

Speaking of work, they tried coercing me into doing more work yesterday. They're so nice to me when they want something, most of the time they act like I'm a brain dead nuisance. If I had to interact with anyone on a daily basis, it would drive me insane, but most of the time it's just me and the kids, so it's bearable. 

The school district is already violating social distancing with how packed these children are on these buses and then my bosses wanted me to take eight more. I said no because I'm bad at directions and get lost easily and ten minutes before work wasn't enough time for me to memorize the new stops but then they mentioned how many kids were getting on. I told them it was irresponsible to take all those kids AND SAID SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE LIKE I FUCKING DID SOMETHING WRONG. 

Also now that everyone rides again, I have to look into the eyes of over twenty human beings every day and say Hi because I think it would be jarring to them to suddenly stop. They might think I'm mad at them and blame themselves but all I wanna do is sit there and mind my business but I can't because I started this so I have to finish it. 

So yeah, for a million more reasons, work is a nightmare again. That's not helping anything. Nothing like a combination of unending exhaustion and bottomless apathy to really spruce up the day. 

I cut my hair and it looks like shit because I don't know how to cut hair but I expected that. I think I was going to do orange but I hate the color orange, I don't know what I was thinking. Probably just wanted to try something new and see if I liked it without thinking I would. But I scrapped that and did lilac on the bottom, pink on the top and mixed the pink and orange to make coral for the front. It turned out really pretty, but the apathy won't let me give more of a fuck than that. 

More than once, I've been driving home while the sun set and my hair matched the sky exactly and...I didn't give a shit. And I got mad myself for not giving a shit. Because this hairstyle and these colors are on borrowed time and I want to enjoy them before they go, but I just can't. I've settled for taking as many pictures as I can. 

Can't really stand the sight of my own face and there's something about trying to find the specific angle where I Don't hate it that feels.....bad. I don't want to perform my own face. Or my own smile. I just want to be alive and have that be enough. 

I forget what else I had in mind. The window is open and the sun is going down. It matches my hair exactly. I made rice pudding and I'm eating it out of an octagon bowl. The laundry is ready to go in the dryer. I paid bills today. I don't care about any of it. I don't care about anything at all. 

I've told my friend how I'm feeling and even that feels bad and meaningless. She hasn't responded yet but when she does, she's going to try and cheer me up. And I'm gonna let her think that she has. Because there isn't much else she can do and I don't want the time she gives me to be a waste. 

These bad stretches of time always pass, I know they do, but fuck. This really really sucks. I hate finding myself here over and over and over again.


	92. Chapter 92

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anger

**November 19, 2020**

**5:21 AM**

Been up for four hours. The five sleeping pills I took only got me four hours of sleep. The american dream. 

I ordered a bicycle back when I was a millionaire and getting $600 a week from unemployment. They said it was gonna arrive between the beginning and end of this month. Go to track the package to see what progress they've made. Delivered september 18, three days after I ordered it. So this entire time, I was looking forward to this fucking thing that was probably stolen from my front door months ago. Sounds about right. 

I haven't been handling the Ls very well recently. I just find myself immediately boiling with rage and I don't like it. It's not like me at all. For example, I got a letter from our building manager threatening me and my neighbors with violations and evictions because she, personally, smelled marijuana in the hallways and that's not allowed. 

Let me rephrase this. I, who does not smoke marijuana, am being threatened with violations and evictions for living near another person on my floor that might be smoking it illegally. I know she's doing it to intimidate us into giving up the culprits but I can't get over just how fucking evil it is. Eleven months into 2020? Eight months into The world event killing people? You're going to threaten a building full of black people, who are still living here because they pay their fucking rent against all odds, with the crime of living beside someone else who smokes weed? I'm supposed to believe you give that much of a fuck about weed?

Or was it the sight of all these negroes that pushed you to pick this particular hill to die on? Just couldn't stand seeing us mind our own business, huh. Is that what the elephant tattoo is for? Is that why you voted for joe biden? Because you're such a good person? Black lives matter do they? Do they? I hate white women. At least when white men act batshit crazy, they're straightforward about it. And to think I was gonna get her an anonymous card thanking her for hanging in there and doing her job despite how rough this year has been. God really stepped in and told me to save my money with this one.

Work has been pissing me off, too. Nine times out of ten if it's my voice over the radio, everything I have to say gets ignored. I had to turn the whole thing off today after they ignored a serious message of mine for the nth time. Tomorrow I'm gonna ask them to change my clock in time so that I'm not constantly late to my first school. This means they'll have to pay me for the extra ten minutes. I expect resistance from my boss, the man who told us not to spray the disinfectant too much lest they have to replace it more often. That man. 

Speaking of, that shit sends me into a coughing fit every time I spray it, I can feel my lungs burn after. Yes please damage the organ I need to fight this disease with. Sounds perfect. 

I hate complaining about things I can't change, I'm more of an "it is what it is" type of person but holy fucking shit am I furious lately. At how much the world fails me even when I do my part, even when I go halfway. The people and entities that are supposed to meet me halfway just don't. In fact I get spat on for going as far as I do in the first place. The more my hands are tied down, the more helpless I'm forced to become, the angrier I get. I haven't been this helpless since I was child, I haven't been this volatile since I was a child. Frothing with rage at any and all slights, frothing at the mouth with vitriol. Nowhere to put the poison so it just corrodes me from the inside. 

I need to look into kickboxing or something, or somewhere else affordable to channel this fury. It w a s going to be my bicycle that gave me a break, but then someone fucking stole it!!!!! And now I'm even angrier than I was before!!!!!!!! 

That stupid bitch in office has apparently refused to concede and I really don't know why anyone is even humoring him. "Do you think they'll have to force him out?" 

Do I think? Do """"I"""" think? It's not my job to generate hypotheticals, I did my fucking part and voted. It is now your job to stab a hook through his piss slit and drag him out kicking and screaming. Fuck am I supposed to do, jog to washington and do it myself? Bring my own fish hook while I'm at it? Pathetic. 

Needless to say, this is a bad night. Haven't had one this bad in a while but fuck. My body is so unfamiliar with this level of anger. It seems like my mouth wants to scream and my fists want to punch and my legs want to kick. All to get away from this shit I'm supposed to call my existence. Yet paradoxically, the more awful shit I can't change ruins my life, the more resigned to it I become. The more defeated I feel, the less I feel like fighting back. And that's not like me either, and it makes me angry to have so many pieces of me taken without my consent. 

Then it's back to the top, back to the anger that has nowhere to go, back to being held down, back to my abject defeat. 

I held on for a long time. To the notion that all is only lost when you believe it is. That you always have a choice, that there's always another way, you just have to be creative about it. I was always so frustrated by how easily people gave up, I felt like I could usually see the way out and they would too, if only they tried. Why didn't they want to even try? I got through so much because I never stopped trying. 

And now here I am. Being wronged every other day, and even though I know it's wrong, and the people wronging me know it's wrong, they will still continue to wrong me. And there's truly nothing I can do about it. Over and over and over again. 

It's abuse. It's just abuse. I can't believe surviving the first round wasn't enough. I can't believe I'm this helpless again. I remember feeling unstoppable mere weeks ago, where did that feeling go? Where did it go? I barely remember it.


	93. Chapter 93

**February 10, 2021**

**1:12 AM**

Today was the first bearable day I've had in what feels like months. It wasn't a good day but it was okay and okay feels like a fucking victory. 

Bitterly cold outside. I left two boxes of soda in my car with the intention of bringing them up a different day but every last one of them seems to have exploded. I went to grab one to drink on my way home and almost cut myself on the can. It was sticking out of the unopened box by sheer force. 

Car is acting up, love that. Nothing quite like car trouble is there. Two of my friends have had tire issues just because it's so cold outside it's fucking with the rubber. Mine keeps acting like it doesn't want to start every day and during the work weeks I've been having, it feels like the scissors hovering over the thin thread of my sanity. We'll see if it all comes to a head. If my car stops working and it destroys the fragile little life boats that are days like today. 

**February 12, 2021**

Holy shit, what an absolutely grueling week. I just got home and I'm still fucking freezing my dick off. 

My school district didn't cancel school so all day, it was me driving past accident after accident, while the weather pissed and shat all over the place. I kept the kids warm and got each one of them home in one piece and I'm really fucking proud of myself for that. It all went off without a hitch, and considering how much this week has kicked the shit out of me, I'm happy nothing bad happened. And I'm happy it's fucking over. 

I don't work on monday because it's president's day and thank fuck for that, too. I've been absolutely begging for a break. 

Yesterday someone held the elevator open for me and he was really nice. We were kindred spirits because he immediately bent over to put his shoes on the rest of the way and so did I. I usually do that while waiting for the elevator and it felt nice not to feel so weird. 

He asked about the hair, something about me liking color, I don't remember, and I told him I needed to cheer myself up because february is so glum. It was a small moment but I was very impressed with myself for not choking on my words or anything. I'm not always prepared for random conversations and if my brain isn't working that day, I lay in processing what the other person said to me. And then I beat myself up for being awkward etc etc. So it was nice. 

Today, I got myself a coffee and the cute guy at the window said he loved my hair. I said thanks and that I liked his tattoos and he said thanks. And then the girl behind him peeked over his shoulder and said that she thought my hair was really pretty, too. And I said thanks again when I got my coffee and even though it was already disgusting outside and already difficult to drive and I wasn't sure if I'd make it to work on time, it made my day. The bus started acting up and it was Fucking Cold in there and none of it bothered me, I felt okay. I felt okay the entire time at work, actually. 

Oh my god, one of the kids asked to get off the bus so he could give his valentine to a girl and I was SO EMBARRASSED FOR HIM. I looked away as much as I could because I didn't want to add pressure so I didn't see if she took it. But he colored the card himself and everything. How sweet. And like, mortifying. But he did it. I was very proud of him. 

And on my end, I'm beating heterosexual men off me with a stick. They've all been extra weird and I realized that it was because of valentine's day. Today, one male coworker who, as I was heading to my car - they always pull this shit away from the office. They never do it with witnesses around because they know they have no right to corner me and demand flirtation or expect me to deal with theirs. - drove up and said, "I didn't get your valentine, it must have gotten lost in the mail." And instead of telling him to go fuck himself, I just said, "Maybe." Because I wasn't sure my car would start and I didn't want to be trapped in the parking lot alone with him after making him angry or worse, need his help to start my car. And with the weather, any other help would take forever to get there and I'd have to sit there freezing while dealing with him. 

This was not sweet. I did not like it. And I'm mad at myself for not giving him the finger. One of these days, I'm going to completely snap, and I can already see the gaslighting coming miles away. What's so hard about leaving someone the fuck alone? I don't talk to or care about any of these bastards. I do not come to work to socialize with them. I do not come to work to flirt. I hate the fact that I have to be there in the first place and then men go and make it worse. 

Anyway, so he fucked up the vibe of the day, but I'm home, and I'm good. I have a million things to do and I refuse to think about a single one of them. I'll let monday me handle that. 

I don't know who hurt february but let's hope I can continue to withstand her wrath.


	94. Chapter 94

**February 18, 2021**

Finally threw away the boxes of soda. They were still frozen and I'm sure I had the rest of winter to do it but by the time I remembered them again, it would have been gallons of sticky wet bullshit all over the place. 

Gallons Of Sticky Wet Bullshit All Over The Place, title of my sex tape. 

I had a random trauma memory smash into me yesterday and I cut on my voice recorder to speak everything out so I wouldn't forget it again. It's not something I've flashed back to in a while and I forgot about the memory, but I don't want to forget it; painful as it is. 

Unfortunately, all that did was give other memories a way to plague me over the course of two days. Things my mind has buried to keep me safe. But my brain put too much trust in me. I can't get through a single day without a vague sort of anguish. 

**February 21, 2021**

****6:09 AM** **

**It's snowing again. The sun hasn't come up so I can't really see the snow from my window until it falls past the street lights and gets illuminated. I wanted this to be peaceful, but it's not.**

**A man walked across the sidewalk and looked up at me. My phone was likely illuminated by the phone light, so he could see me. I didn't mean to stare at him, I just didn't realize he'd be able to see me too. I was wishing him a safe journey just before he looked up. I can't imagine how cold and empty the world must feel on a cold walk home as it snows.**

**I guess it's not night, though. Even though it's dark.**

**I can't sleep. I don't have to be at work today so I'm gonna stay awake until I can't anymore.**

**February has been difficult. Terrible things happening in Texas. Terrible things happening everywhere. But on my end-**

**Oh the snow is coming down harder. I can see it in the dark now. I'm gonna try and watch for a bit.**

**7:03 AM**

Sun's up. Couldn't focus on the snow so I started watching videos instead. And now it's light out. Disappointed in myself. 

That's how time has been passing, too. I hunker down to get through one thing and lose track of time altogether. I'm never going to experience this morning ever again and I can't seem to treat it like it's something precious. I find that to be really really frustrating. 

My beaded curtain arrived. It's hung up, looks like it did in the pictures, and as expected, it's barely brought me joy. Even running my fingers over the beads and making the krrrrr sound barely makes me feel anything. It's dampened my motivation to put the stuff on my wall that's supposed to go up. If I go to all that trouble and still feel nothing, it's going to kill me. So I'll wait until I feel better. 

All my complaining aside, I've managed a streak of Being Alright. Not happy, not sad, just getting through the day successfully. Going to work, coming home, doing chores. Feeding me, brushing my teeth, going to bed in a warm home with running water and electricity and wifi. It's a luxury to get to be depressed in conditions like mine and I know that. My car has continued to start regarding the absolutely frigid temperatures we've been hitting, so we have that in common. Little and getting through the day. 

Oh, traffic is picking up. People coming home from graveyard shifts. People going in to work on a sunday. Their cars have snow all over them except for the windshield and windows. There's a weather advisory for today so I bet it was miserable cleaning their cars off. I hope they have heat. Mine doesn't work anymore for some reason and I don't have it in me to deal with that when I'm using everything I have to get through the day. I'm not so far from work that I'm freezing for too long. 

I do like getting snow off the car, though. It's weirdly calming. I had to dig it out of knee deep snow a week or two ago and that was a challenge. Getting the snow off alone was a challenge. And the plows buried the tires all around and i parked on the side of the building with street traffic. Caught two boys watching who looked horrified and doubtful that I'd even be able to get out once I started driving. They immediately looked away to leave me to my presumed suffering. That was nice. 

Of course I got the car out. Once I was behind the wheel, a nurse watched me screech back and forth on that giant mound of shit fully doubting my abilities. I saw his face when I got out like I knew I could. He was impressed and for good reason. I'm the shit. 

I'm good in the snow, for whatever reason. Didn't grow up with it whatsoever and I've only been driving since 2015. My car isn't made for weather like this either but you know what they say. Legends never die. Or I have a guardian angel. Maybe both. 

Oh, roommate is up. So early. Maybe she just never went to bed either though. My eyes are burning. I would very much love to be allowed to go to bed but my body isn't having it. Nonstop cockblocks, this one. 

What else happened. Can't remember. Oh, the war flashbacks. Those are back to being dormant. Can't remember most of my childhood again. I don't think I'm going to try processing those on my own again. I'm gonna need a specialist in the room. I don't remember what I remembered but I remember thinking it was too much to handle, especially as the memories started flooding. 

I think that's fascinating. The brain's ability to recognize abuse for what it is, even before we can conceptualize it. Even if we have nothing to compare it to, we understand, fundamentally, that we deserve love. 

I think deserve is the wrong word. I don't think you can deserve love. I've known many people who I thought didn't deserve another person's love but got it anyway. Murderers are loved. R*pists are loved. The list goes on. That stupid bitch donald trump is loved. 

I think categorizing love as something you can or cannot deserve helps us try to understand it, but I don't think we do. I don't think we get it. I don't think I get it. But pretending like it's something we can measure maybe helps us cope when someone doesn't love us. There's somewhere to put the blame. 

Or maybe it's more like a game to win. Wear this, say that. Laugh at this, have that, and bam. Easy. You'll have it. And when people feel like they've done everything right and still remain unloved, they're confused. It's shocking. Devastating. 

Or how about the opposite? When I feel like I couldn't possibly be loved by another person Because I haven't earned it? It wasn't a difficult enough tribulation, I didn't do enough, or I didn't do anything at all, so it can't be love. It won't be love until I've suffered for it. 

I mean, by that logic, does a mother love her baby? Can she love a person that's done absolutely nothing but need her to survive? Can you love someone that can never disagree with you? Can never tell you something you don't want to hear? Can never behave in a way you disagree with? 

Would a mother who claims to love her child let me waltz into her home and tell her she doesn't? Which one of us would be right? Both? Neither? 

-The cars outside almost keep getting stuck right outside my window. It's really mushy out. Lots of swerving. 

Once again, I have no answers to life's simple questions. I don't even know how I ended up thinking about this. 

Regarding my person, I think I processed everything and have moved on from the period of my life where thinking about them hurt. I don't get upset anymore. I don't ache for them anymore. I don't think about them all the time anymore. This may be the first emotionally difficult thing I've processed and actually moved past in my life. It feels good. It feels like it's truly behind me. 

I find myself in a new paradox each time they do come to mind, though. The further behind me the whole thing becomes, the more leverage the self loathing demon in my skull has against me. Like I cringe anytime I refer to them as my soulmate and that's not fair to the me of just october. I'm going to have to respect what I felt, even if it's really hard to remember why I felt that strange compulsion. 

I worried for a while that I was just in a new chapter of pandemic trauma and latching on to this person in particular as a result of said trauma. It was hard to remind myself that we'd met before all this and I don't have any history of attaching to people in the middle of traumatic life events. And that, honestly, the events of this pandemic on my psyche have been deep and immeasurable but not only have I been through worse, I've handled said worse...uhhh...worse. wow, engls. 

So the real winner here is my self loathing, a powerful beast that seeks any and every opportunity to shit on me. 

But I'm not crumbling at the knees in the face of just any beautiful person that gives me attention, hence the more legitimacy I feel comfortable giving this whole....whatever it was. I can say I met someone that felt like they were my soulmate and when they didn't choose me, I let them go. I'm really fucking proud of myself for that. Finally. 

The landscape is disappearing under the snow. The naked tree branches are covered entirely in snow. Sidewalks are white. The tops of lamps. The bus stop bench is almost completely gone. The powerlines are balancing as much as they can before the snowflakes get too heavy and have to fall off. And the cars are driving by, one after the other, without getting stuck. I hope they remain safe, wherever they're going. 

I would like to leave something here that cheers me up, just a little, whenever I see it. If I've already talked about it, I'm sorry. 

It's construction people in high visibility gear. And worker boots. And layers and layers of clothes because it's cold outside. And reflective or bright clothes, so they don't get hit while they do their jobs. And face masks. Seeing them on site does not bring me peace, I hate that their jobs are so dangerous. It's seeing them off duty, going about their day. Walking to a convenience store or walking on the pavement somewhere. 

A single person whose vulnerable body is as protected as it can be. Someone thought of their feet. And the very tops of their head. And their chest and their lungs and their hands. Gloves, hats, coats, boots, masks. Be safe be safe be safe be safe. Your body is a delicate, breakable thing but we've decided it will not be broken.


	95. Chapter 95

**February 21, 2021**

**7:55 PM**

I know it's the same day but ao3 keeps scrambling these chapters so I'm just gonna try dating each entry to help with confusion. --Oh, mom's calling. One sec. 

**11:27 PM**

Not one sec at all. Utterly wiped out. I think I'm dissociating too. The conversation was going good until the end. Was accused. Gaslit. Guilt tripped. The usual. Received some shit news about more things I can't change. I think I'm upset. Or angry  
But I can't feel anything. Feel floaty. Far away. Go figure. 

I registered for the vaccine, finally. That's what I opened this to say. I've been meaning to all month and kept forgetting. I was glad I remembered. 

I have to do my taxes, too. I can't let another month go by or I'll just forget to do it completely and that'll be a whole different mess to clean up down the line.

Fucking hell. My whole night is ruined. Talking to my family always makes me feel like shit. I thought I was getting used to the feeling but I don't think I am. Used to it, I mean. 

I made pasta. I almost started writing. Opened my laptop and everything, but that's shot to hell now. 

I have to take my sleeping pills. I think I went to bed at 10am today. Definitely can't do that again tomorrow. I hope two is gonna be enough. I'm taking pain meds for my p*riod cramps and it's been over four hours but it's only day one. It'll be a week of balancing pill cocktails. Gonna take a lot of brain power to do. We've started on a shit note. 

I'm forgetting other things, big important things I can't let slip through the cracks, but I'm tapping out for today.


	96. Chapter 96

**February 28, 2021**

**10:50 AM**

I think today is the last day of february. Might be a leap year. Or I think last year was a leap year. Not gonna check. Don't care.

It took everything to get out of bed almost every single day this past week. My sleep schedule is fucked to hell again but my stomach hurts from the balancing act of medicine I did all week. I still haven't gone to bed. I'm gonna try to stay up and maybe I'll be so tired by like 9pm that I'll just pass out. 

Spring break is coming soon. Every cell in my body needs it. It's been so hard doing the bare minimum that I'm behind on things. Fucking hate when that happens. 

I've maintained my record of being alright. I don't know what the fuck I did to my hair but it's looked amazing for several days straight. That never happens. I'm finally enjoying the bob. The lilac is almost all the way gone but I'm gonna buy some more and put it back in. I didn't get to enjoy it while it was around and I'm mad about it. I look like a mushroom and I'm going to squeeze every last drop of joy I can from that fact. I might do the tips a different color just because I can. I'm going look like spring if I want to and no one is going to stop me. 

The Baldening will have to be rescheduled for when I have money. I wanted to do it over break but then february decided it wanted me dead and I've been preoccupied clawing my way out of the grave. 

I don't know how long this bone deep exhaustion is going to last. It feels like I just get more and more and more tired. I'm grateful to be feeling some tiny happiness, though. I almost felt swallowed whole by the past month. I think two days ago was the first time I've felt like myself since....I don't even remember. 

Was referred to as nonbinary by a friend and it felt like a defibrillator to the chest, like I was jolted into my body. I think maybe that means that I am what I say I am. I get so scared that I'm faking. It's hard to insist that I'm real when I don't feel real in most interpretations of the word. But I think the truth is going to be the truth regardless of who likes it or not. Myself included. 

A thought that makes me happy is thinking about lesbians. More specifically, lesbians that fall in love with, or are attracted to, trans women before they are out. Or before the trans woman even realizes herself that she's a woman. It's such a beautiful thing to me. To know someone's soul and what it looks like. Feels like??? I don't know what the words are. 

I know a few people who, if they came out as trans to me today, would make complete sense to me. But what is that? What is that knowing called???? Being a person is....well, when I think about queerness, personhood feels like a gift. Not my own queerness, that just gives me a headache. Queerness in general. It makes me so happy. It makes me happy to think about people finding themselves right there in their own bodies all along. If I have to describe it, it feels like a hug from the inside. Or when you click a lego block into place. 

I do this too, with my sexuality. I'll go long periods without seeing a soul and wonder if I'm attracted to anyone at all. And then I'll see a hot person's shoulders or some dumb shit and be like oh....no. I'm....Attracted. Back and forth and back and forth like a stupid pancake. 

I'm getting distracted. There I go.

 **March 1, 2021**

**10:50 PM**

I've heard about syria. I've heard about the vaccine roll out fuck ups. I've heard about the covid variants. It's too much. The suffering is too much. I can't take it. I can't keep looking. 

Sometimes, I want these logs to be hopeful. To remind myself and you that there's much to look forward to. To take the concrete realities that support that and hold them up as evidence all on their own. Because blind hope that everything is going to get better has never worked for me. I need to do more work than that to convince myself. 

So sometimes, I'm hopeful. I find the smallest good thing I can and make myself hold it in my hands. And maybe, if the building collapses on me, I can open my hands from underneath the rubble, bleeding, and find the small thing undamaged, right there in my hands. And it's enough that the small thing survived. Outside of my wounds, outside of my death, outside of the building. Sometimes its enough to watch the small thing escape and feel happy that it's still able to do that when I can't. 

But jesus fucking christ.


	97. Chapter 97

**February 8, 2020**

**6:39 PM**

Another absolutely bullshit day at work. I got my ass reamed for fixing my boss's mistakes and I can't believe I ever fucking bothered in the first place. I already barely give a shit about work, but I still do my job well. I can't just slack off for slacking off's sake, but I'm done being nice. 

I'm done being polite to rude coworkers, creepy coworkers, asshole coworkers. I'm done taking on responsibility that isn't mine. They can choke on their own fuck ups and I'm going to laugh from the shadows. I've already been standoffish to our union rep, an old man who salivates over the chance to harass me, and I'm expecting consequences because he knows everyone, but I don't care. 

Do you know what he said to me? I wore skinny jeans (I hate skinny jeans but I wanted to see if they were comfy enough to keep anyway - and now I don't remember the conclusion I came to because of this incident) and a 4XL hoodie and as I was going to my car, he stopped and said, "You clean up good." 

It was everything I could do not to throw up right in his face. I stormed past him and got in my car and he had the audacity to stand there holding his hands out like he didn't know what he did wrong. That's the worst part for me, when they act like they don't know what they're doing. I hope he keeps the charade up, I have no problem cussing him out in public if I have to. I've had it up to my hairline with old men. 

I've made pasta, furiously, and I'm going to take a bath, furiously, and I'm going to vacuum, furiously. I can't believe I'm still this angry, by the time I get home, the events of the day leak out of my ears like they never happened. 

I've rearranged my bed yet again, and it's up against the window. Very weird to wake up staring directly into both the sun and traffic but it might be the perfect spot so everything else can fit. My papasan is out of the closet and in my bedroom proper, my rocking chair is now in the closet, and it works better for a nook. I'm hoping rocking back and forth will help me concentrate on reading. I don't know where the me-sized elephant is going to - by the way, I was measuring the door to my closet to see if the beaded curtain - NO

Okay, remember the beaded curtain? Supposed to give my brain the will to live? It was delivered five days ago. To a city seven states away. So I have to contact them - lemme go and do that right now before I forget. 

**7:30 PM**

Case is open. That was exhausting. Now I have to have the brain cells to keep up with this over the next few days. I decided to have them just resend me a different one instead of asking for a refund. The first time I saw it, I didn't even think before the buy button because it's two beautiful things at once and I couldn't say no. But this time I actually measured my doorway to see if it would fit and lo and behold, it would. 

But while I was measuring, I got to 5'4 on the measuring tape and realized that I had to look up? At it? And as someone assigned 5'4 at the doctor's for my entire adult life, I balked. So I went to my mirror, stood beside the tape, and measured myself. I'm.....5'2. With my hair, I'm 5'3. I was never 5'4. Absolutely gutted. Absolutely disgusted. 

In my head I'm 7 feet tall. And 5'4 was disappointing enough, but y'know, that's average height. That's something. But 5'2.....devastating. And the worst part is that my eye level? Five feet exactly. Like the only thing saving my dignity is my forehead. 

Anyway. I forget what I was talking about. Let me scroll back up. 

I can never keep anything on track, can I. Tomorrow is gonna be another bullshit day at work because I'm going to do everything exactly the way they want. And when it falls apart, I'm just going to watch. Fuck me for giving even this morsel of a shit. 

My bed and everything finally working in my room feels good. Not as good as I'd like for it to feel, but better than nothing.

**Author's Note:**

> at least if I die because I was forced to go to work during an entire pandemic -- or murdered because of racism/homophobia/et al -- this really will be rpf. the fiction of course being that I was a person who deserved to be alive 😬

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * A [Restricted Work] by [2049](https://archiveofourown.org/users/2049/pseuds/2049) Log in to view. 




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